Re: literacy assessment

Peter Smagorinsky (smago who-is-at peachnet.campus.mci.net)
Tue, 01 Sep 1998 19:19:39 -0400

I've been planning to do this, though the list is getting pretty long
(presently about 10 pp.). I think this is close to the limit of what
should be posted to a listserve. If anyone objects to the idea of a
listserve posting of the bibliography, please let me know off-net and I'll
try a different plan.

In the meantime: If you've got $75 to spare, my own collection will be
pretty paltry next to a new book by Bruce W. Speck, Grading Student
Writing: An Annotated Bibliography (Greenwood Press). It includes roughly
300 pp. of annotated citations for writing assessment.

One thing that's really striking about what I've collected so far is the
superabundance of publications on writing assessment and the near-absence
of publications on the assessment of reading/literary understanding.
Evaluating either one is problematic, I think, but the field appears to be
much more capable of deciding what good writing entails and evaluating it
than it is of identifying and evaluating the qualities involved in good
reading. The question of what's involved in a good reading of literature
was pretty well established by the New Critics, though they are now
perceived as being very narrow in their conception of literature and how
one properly reads it. Constructivist theories of literary response now
honor multiple ways of reading and multiple ways of representing readings,
and perhaps this recognition of idiosyncratic readings accounts for the
reluctance to evaluate the quality of a response. The ratio of publications
on writing assessment:reading assessment, however, is far more imbalanced
than I'd imagined.

Peter

At 04:09 PM 9/1/98, you wrote:
>Pete,
>
>Like Jay did when he finalized his syllabus with the research methodology
>course, could you also post your final booklist to XMCA when you finish?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Cindy
>
>At 03:51 PM 8/28/98 -0400, you wrote:
>>I've agreed to teach a graduate course next semester called something like
>>Assessment in Secondary English/Language Arts. Although I've dealt
>>implicitly with assessment before, I've never made it the primary
>>consideration in a course I've taught. I'm putting together a working
>>bibliography and hope that xmca-ers can help recommend titles. Not every
>>book needs to be specifically about teaching secondary school English; I'm
>>think of using Wells and Chang-Wells's Constructing Knowledge Together and
>>Newman et al's The Construction Zone, for instance, as ways of laying a
>>theoretical foundation for thinking about assessment. And so I'll simply
>>ask at this point, could anyone recommend titles? As Jay's done with his
>>research methods bibliography, I'll gladly post a bibliography when
>>suggestions stop coming in. Feel free to respond on or off the xmca network.
>>
>>thanks,Peter
>>
>>
>>Peter Smagorinsky
>>co-editor, Research in the Teaching of English
>><http://www.ncte.org/rte/>
>>University of Georgia, College of Education, Department of Language
>>Education, 125 Aderhold Hall, Athens, GA 30602-7123
>>internet: smago who-is-at peachnet.campus.mci.net fax: 706-542-4509
>>campus office phone: 706-542-4507
>>
>>
>>
>Cindy O'Donnell-Allen
>University of Oklahoma
>College of Education
>Dept. of Instructional Leadership & Academic Curriculum
>820 Van Vleet Oval
>Norman, OK 73019-0260
>
>