1
In My Humble OpinionAssessing L2 Writing in
the First Year Writing Classroom

• Amanda Athon
• Bowling Green State University
• aathon_at_bgsu.edu

2
CCCC Position Statement

• In 1972, the Conference on College Composition
  and Communication passed the resolution
  Students Rights to Their Own Language
• We affirm the students' right to their own
  patterns and varieties of language -- the
  dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects
  in which they find their own identity and
  style. (SRTOL).

3
What is Basic Writing and Who are Basic Writers?

• Courses typically offer no credit (Trimmer)
• May emphasize grammar (Trimmer Rose)
• Students struggle with issues of
  conceptualization (Adler-Kassner)
• More distance between their dialects and
  traditional academic dialects(Bizzell)

4
Research Participants

• Two sections of First-Year Writing 1100 at
  Midwestern University
• One section enrolls international nonnative
  speakers of English both sections enrolled
  nonnative speakers
• Higher percentage of nonstandard dialects in
  basic writing courses (Bizzell)
• Instructor Participant Kay self-identifies as
  nonnative speaker of English
• Instructor Participant May a graduate
  instructor in the English department

5
Methodologies

• Largely influenced by feminisms recognizing of
  the personal narrative and ethic of care toward
  research participants
• Value on the experiences of participants rather
  than just the researchers observations
• Development of a research website to share
  findings and provide updates on visits

6
(No Transcript)
7
Research Questions

• ? What are heuristics for designing
  classroom-based assessment practices for
  nonnative speakers of English or speakers of
  dialects?
• ? How can we design assessment practices that are
  culturally sensitive to speakers of nonstandard
  English?
• ? How do students with diverse language
  backgrounds experience the assessment process?

8
Data Results

• Students model their views of good writing
  based on the language of the program rubric.
• Instructors and students tend to think of error
  as referring to sentence-level mistakes.
• Students desired more language diverse writing
  models and assessments that specified how writing
  had progressed.

9
Error Patterns in Student Writing

• May noted that students struggle with writing
  words as they hear them Geoffrey Pullum calls
  these eggcorns.
• Kays international students struggled with verb
  issues and syntax errors due to structural
  differences between home languages and English.
• What may appear to be a mistake may actually be
  due to language difference.

10
Influence of Program Rubrics

• Although students, instructors, as well as the
  program guidebook, expressed that instructor
  feedback was the most valuable form of
  assessment, the language of the rubric was the
  most influential to students.
• Balester categorizes writing rubrics as
  acculturationaism, those which count errors to
  determine correctness accomodationism, which
  make some attempt to accommodate second-language
  writers and multiculturalism, which incorporate
  principles of the CCCC position statement on
  language diversity through the emphasis of
  writerly agency (72).

11
Rubrics that Foster Language Diversity

• University of Southern Florida First Year Writing
  Rubric

12
Questions or Comments?