College English Nov 2016

Who We Are(n’t) Assessing: Racializing Language and Writing Assessment in Writing Program Administration

Staci M. Perryman-Clark

Abstract

Decisions about writing assessment are rooted in racial and linguistic identity; the consequences for many writing assessment decisions are often reflective of the judgments made about who does and does not deserve opportunities for success, opportunities historically denied to students of color and linguistically diverse writers. Put simply, assessment creates or denies opportunity structures. Because writing assessment is also racially and linguistically affected by the identities of those performing assessment, the role of writing program administrator (WPA) becomes a social justice role that challenges racial and linguistic biases and interrogates institutional structures, so that all students have the same opportunities for success.

Journal
College English
Published
2016-11-01
DOI
10.58680/ce201628815
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
assessment writing program administration race and writing
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (8)

  1. Hartwell et al. (2025)
    Editorial introduction, Assessing writing Tools & Tech Forum 2025
    Assessing Writing
  2. Bergen (2024)
    Hostile and Hospitable Programmatic Architectures
    Pedagogy
  3. Santana et al. (2024)
    Working toward Antiracist Graduate Student Writing Development
    College English
  4. Franz et al. (2024)
    Black Linguistic Justice from Theory to Practice
    College Composition and Communication
  5. Jiang (2024)
    Composing to Enact Affective Agency: Engaging Multimodal Antiracist Pedagogy in…
    College Composition and Communication
Show all 8 →
  1. Sullivan et al. (2023)
    Feature: National Report on Developmental Education: Corequisite Reform Is Working
    Teaching English in the Two-Year College
  2. Tinkle et al. (2022)
    (In)Equities in directed self-placement
    Assessing Writing
  3. Hammond (2019)
    Making our invisible racial agendas visible: Race talk in Assessing Writing, 19…
    Assessing Writing

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