College Composition and Communication Feb 2025

Constructivist Writing Placement: Repositioning Agency for More Equitable Placement through Collaborative Writing Placement Practices

Jennifer Burke Reifman ; Stacy Wittstock ; Tricia Serviss ; Beth Pearsall ; Dan Melzer

Abstract

This article presents a constructivist writing placement framework, developed from the study of two pilot iterations of a local writing placement mechanism at a large public research university. Through preliminary analysis of data from these pilots, we present a model of constructivist writing placement and demonstrate how it helps move conceptualizations of student agency as primarily housed within student exercise of choice toward more robust understandings and facilitation of student agency via placement. Extending recent calls to reconsider methodological traditions like directed self-placement to more explicitly account for educational equity issues, our two pilot assessments illustrate how we might reposition student agency within writing placement as emergent from situational interactions with faculty and the institutions they represent, rather than merely authorized by them.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2025-02-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc2025763423
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
collaborative writing assessment race and writing
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (54) · 13 in this index

  1. Allen (2018)
    Composition Is the Ethical Negotiation of Fantastical Selves
    College Composition and Communication
  2. Aull (2021)
    Directed Self-Placement: Subconstructs and group differences at a U.S. university
    Assessing Writing
  3. Balay (2012)
    Placing Students in Writing Classes: One University’s Experience with a Modified Version …
    Composition Forum
  4. Bedore (2004)
    Informed Self-Placement: Is a Choice Offered a Choice Received?
    WPA: Writing Program Administration
  5. Berlin (1987)
    Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1985
Show all 54 →
  1. Blakesley (2002)
    Directed Self-Placement in the University
    WPA: Writing Program Administration
  2. Brown (1991)
    Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Le…
    Organization Science  ↗
  3. Reifman (2024)
    Reading the reader through raciolinguistic ideologies: An investigation of the …
    Assessing Writing
  4. Connors (1997)
    Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, and Pedagogy
     ↗
  5. Cooper (2011)
    Rhetorical Agency as Emergent and Enacted
    College Composition and Communication
  6. Cornell (2003)
    Directed Self-Placement: Principles and Practices
  7. Crowley (1998)
    Composition in the University: Historical and Polemical Essays
     ↗
  8. Crusan (2011)
    The Promise of Directed Self-Placement for Second Language Writers
    TESOL Quarterly  ↗
  9. Das Bender (2011)
    Writing Assessment in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of Edward M. White
  10. Dewey (2008)
    The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 14, 1899-1924: Human Nature and Conduct 1922
  11. Famulari (2012)
    Identifying the Causal Effects of Remedial Writing on Collegiate Performance Using Placem…
  12. Ferris (2020)
    Collaborative Placement of Multilingual Writers: Combining Formal Assessment and Self-Eva…
    Journal of Writing Assessment
  13. Gere et al. (2010)
    Assessing the validity of directed self-placement at a large university
    Assessing Writing
  14. Gross (2024)
    Construct Validity and the Demise of the Analytical Writing Placement Examination (AWPE) …
    Journal of Writing Assessment  ↗
  15. Guba (1989)
    Fourth Generation Evaluation
  16. Hirsch (2024)
    Collaborative Writing Placement: Partnering with Students in the Placement Process
    Journal of Writing Assessment  ↗
  17. Horton (2022)
    Two Sisters and a Heuristic for Listening to Multilingual, International Students’ Direct…
    Journal of Writing Assessment  ↗
  18. Huot (1996)
    Toward a New Theory of Writing Assessment
    College Composition and Communication
  19. Inoue (2015)
    Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Ju…
     ↗
  20. Inoue (2009)
    Self-Assessment as Programmatic Center: The First Year Writing Program and Its Assessment…
    Composition Forum
  21. Jones (2008)
    Self-Placement at a Distance: Challenge and Opportunities
    WPA: Writing Program Administration
  22. Ketai (2012)
    Race and Writing Assessment
  23. Lave (1991)
    Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation
     ↗
  24. Lewiecki-Wilson et al. (2000)
    Rhetoric and the writer's profile
    Assessing Writing
  25. Luna (2003)
    A Voice in the Decision: Self-Evaluation in the Freshman English Placement Process
    Reading & Writing Quarterly  ↗
  26. Messer (2022)
    A Path to Equity, Agency, and Access: Self-Directed Placement at the Community College of…
  27. Moos et al. (2019)
    Directed self-placement as a tool to foreground student agency
    Assessing Writing
  28. Nastal (2022)
    Writing Placement in Two-Year Colleges: The Pursuit of Equity in Postsecondary Education
  29. Neal (2003)
    Directed Self-Placement: Principles and Practices
  30. Nicolay (2002)
    Placement and Instruction in Context: Situating Writing within a First-Year Program
    Writing Program Administration
  31. O’Neill (2003)
    Moving Beyond Holistic Scoring through Validity Inquiry
    Journal of Writing Assessment
  32. Reynolds (2003)
    Directed Self-Placement: Principles and Practices
  33. Rose (1990)
    Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America’s Ed…
  34. Royer et al. (1998)
    Directed Self-Placement: An Attitude of Orientation
    College Composition and Communication
  35. Schendel et al. (1999)
    Exploring the theories and consequences of self-assessment through ethical inquiry
    Assessing Writing
  36. Shaughnessy (1977)
    Errors and Expectations
  37. Soliday (2002)
    The Politics of Remediation: Institutional and Student Needs in Higher Education
     ↗
  38. Stanley (2010)
    The Rhetoric of Remediation: Negotiating Entitlement and Access to Higher Education
     ↗
  39. Swales (2000)
    Languages for Specific Purposes
    Annual Review of Applied Linguistics  ↗
  40. Tinkle et al. (2022)
    (In)Equities in directed self-placement
    Assessing Writing
  41. Toth (2018)
    Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and the Advancement of Opportunity
     ↗
  42. Toth (2019)
    Directed Self-Placement at Two-Year Colleges: A Kairotic Moment
    Journal of Writing Assessment
  43. Toth et al. (2014)
    Directed self-placement questionnaire design: Practices, problems, possibilities
    Assessing Writing
  44. (2017)
    Analytical Writing Placement Examination Process
  45. Vygotsky (1978)
    Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes
  46. Wang (2020)
    Toward a Rhetorical Model of Directed Self-Placement
    WPA: Writing Program Administration
  47. White (1985)
    Teaching and Assessing Writing: Recent Advances in Understanding, Evaluating, and Improvi…
  48. Wittstock (2022)
    Gatekeeping by Design: The Use of an Exit Exam as a ‘Boss Text’ in a Basic Writing Course
    Journal of Basic Writing  ↗
  49. Yancey (1999)
    Looking Back as We Look Forward: Historicizing Writing Assessment
    College Composition and Communication
CrossRef global citation count: 0 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related Articles

  1. Composition Forum Oct 2025
    Collaborative and Equitable Assessment: Graduate Student Responses to Co-Creating Feedback Guidelines in a Graduate Composition Pedagogy Course ↗
    writing pedagogy graduate education teacher development collaborative writing assessment literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies editorial matter
  2. Pedagogy Oct 2024
    Contributors ↗
    rhetorical criticism first-year composition writing pedagogy basic writing writing across the curriculum graduate education two-year college service learning teacher development revision argument collaborative writing assessment writing program administration multimodality multilingual writers literacy studies race and writing disability studies community literacy editorial matter
  3. Pedagogy Oct 2023
    Contributors ↗
    rhetorical criticism first-year composition writing pedagogy writing across the curriculum two-year college teacher development collaborative writing assessment writing centers qualitative research multimodality literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies affect and writing literary studies book reviews editorial matter
  4. Pedagogy Jan 2022
    Contributors ↗
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism genre theory discourse analysis african american rhetorics decolonial rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy basic writing writing across the curriculum graduate education teacher development argument collaborative writing transfer assessment portfolios writing program administration writing centers peer tutoring technical communication professional writing archival research digital rhetoric social media grammar and mechanics literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies public rhetoric community literacy literary studies editorial matter
  5. Pedagogy Oct 2021
    Contributors ↗
    rhetorical criticism discourse analysis writing pedagogy graduate education two-year college teacher development collaborative writing transfer assessment labor and working conditions multimodality social media online writing instruction multilingual writers literacy studies race and writing gender and writing public rhetoric community literacy affect and writing literary studies editorial matter