College Composition and Communication Sep 2023

Engaging Assessment Counterstories through a Cultural Rhetorics Framework

Stephanie West-Puckett ; Nicole I. Caswell ; William P. Banks

Abstract

Cultural rhetorics—as orientation, methodology, and practice—has made meaningful contributions to writing pedagogy (Brooks-Gillies et al.; Cedillo and Bratta; Baker-Bell; Cedillo et al.; Cobos et al.; Condon and Young; Powell). Despite these contributions, classroom teachers and writing program administrators can struggle to conceptualize assessment beyond bureaucratic practice and their role in assessment beyond standing in loco for the institution. To more fully realize the potential of cultural rhetorics in our classrooms and programs, the field needs assessment models that seek to uncover the counterstories of writing and meaning-making. Our work, at the intersections of queer rhetorics and writing assessment, provides a theoretical framework called Queer Validity Inquiry (QVI) that disrupts stock stories of success—a success that is always available to some at the expense of others. Through four diffractive lenses—failure, affectivity, identity, and materiality—QVI prompts us to determine what questions about student writers and their writing intrigue us, why we care about them, and whose interests are being served by those questions.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2023-09-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc202332674
Open Access
Closed
Topics
writing pedagogy writing program administration assessment multimodality gender and writing multilingual writers affect and writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

  1. Aguilar (2025)
    AI Writing Is Always Embodied: Building a Critical Awareness of the Invisible L…
    College Composition and Communication
  2. (2024)
    Symposium: The Homosexual Imagination: A Fifty-Year Retrospective
    College English

Cites in this index (6)

  1. Oleksiak (2021)
    Slow Peer Review in the Writing Classroom
    Pedagogy
  2. Cedillo et al. (2019)
    Relating Our Experiences: The Practice of Positionality Stories in Student-Cent…
    College Composition and Communication
  3. Cobos et al. (2018)
    Interfacing Cultural Rhetorics: A History and a Call
    Rhetoric Review
  4. West-Puckett (2016)
    Making Classroom Writing Assessment More Visible, Equitable, and Portable throu…
    College English
  5. Danielewicz et al. (2009)
    A Unilateral Grading Contract to Improve Learning and Teaching
    College Composition and Communication
Show all 6 →
  1. Varnum (1986)
    From crisis to crisis: The evolution toward higher standards of literacy in the…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Also cites 10 works outside this index ↓
  1. Baker-Bell (2020)
    Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy
     ↗
  2. Beck (2018)
    Routledge Companion to Digital Writing & Rhetoric
     ↗
  3. Connors (1997)
    Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, and Pedagogy
     ↗
  4. Diederich (1946)
    The Measurement of Skill in Writing
    School Review  ↗
  5. 10.1080/00380237.2000.10571154
     ↗
  6. Inoue (2015)
    Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Jus…
     ↗
  7. Martinez (2016)
    Performing Antiracist Pedagogy in Rhetoric, Writing, and Communication
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    Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
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    When Students Have Power: Negotiating Authority in a Critical Pedagogy
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  10. Zhang (2016)
    Do Learning Stories Tell the Whole Story of Children’s Learning? A Phenomenographic Enquiry
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CrossRef global citation count: 2 View in citation network →

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