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Overview: The introduction that you read from Asou Inoue's Antiracist Writing Pedagogy lays out the basis for his text: that the way we design and assess writing classrooms have historically been rooted in the values of the white, middle-class--that what we consider "good" writing is not actually universally good, but very much situated in the white habitus of K-12 education.
But it is in the rest of the text that he deepens this argument and identifies the ways a classroom can impact BIPOC/ALANA students. The final chapter, offers a very specific lens and ways to mitigate the affects of systemic racism in the classroom. This is a dense text and to have everyone read all of it would be asking too much (though it is free and you are welcome to do so). For this post, you will first talk in your group with others who have read the same parts of the text that you wrote.
15 Comments
Sarah Egan
6/22/2021 11:06:57 am
Race is an important social dimension that should be payed attention to if educators want to teach better, assess better, and construct a better future with equal opportunities for everyone. Race is marked through language. The author argues that “in good writing classrooms, goes the argument, one can honor and respect the languages that all students bring to the classroom, then teach and promote a local SEAE so that those students have a chance at future success. (31). Race was often used to understand the results of intelligence tests which proves that white racial dispositions are hidden in different assessments. Writing teachers need to consider the function of race in their classroom writing assessments; structural racism forms the context of writing courses. The term, habitus provides readers with three different ways to think about race as socially constructed: discursively/ linguistically, materially/ bodily, and performatively. Overall, it allows us to think about it through ways we behave, communicate, and standard of living. Inoue argues that white habitus is in classrooms whether the teachers recognize it or not. Writing in classrooms often center on white privilege and colonialism through books about history enveloped in racism and representation of predominately white authors. Inoue states that “no one is trying to be racist, but it is happening systemically and consistently, or structurally through the various classroom writing assessment ecologies. What should be clear is that racism isn’t something that is always a “conscious aiming at ends,” rather it is often a product of overlapping racial structures in writing assessments that are subjective and projective” (63). Educators need to be mindful of what structures they are playing into and if it is appropriately anti-racist. Racism is in literacy but when individual learned racism is added on, together there is a ginormous force that takes over the education system because “Paying attention to race in our classroom writing assessments isn’t racist. In fact, not paying attention to race often leads to racism” (76). Inoue also argues that failure rates in writing programs are from economic impact more than anything else because not only is racism a part of curriculum but also a role in the lack of resources needed to provide an equitable education for all students.
Lauren Wrigley
6/22/2021 11:30:22 am
Your analysis of this chapter really brings more clarity to the term 'habitus'. This term was used many times throughout chapter 5, explaining that assessment ecology involves challenging and moving away from assessing student writing by comparing it with the dominant white discourse of the white habitus. So I really only thought about habitus as discursive/linguistic, and maybe performative. Putting it into broader terms of behavior, communication and standard living makes the idea of an antiracist ecology seem more accessible in a classroom, rather than just thinking about assessing writing alone.
Alexis Medeiros and Emma Healy
6/22/2021 11:10:08 am
This chapter focuses on how the seven ecological elements can help teachers develop antiracist writing assessment ecologies in a more equal way.“The seven interconnected and holistic elements are: power, parts, purposes, people, processes, products, and places (Inoue 119).” The first ecological element, and most prominent, is power. Power is how we ask students to “submit the products of their labor to us for evaluation.” Foucault highlights the importance of discipline in power, and how it can be both constructed and manipulated. If not properly thought upon, power can repeat conventional looking hierarchies when grading student writing that are racist. Power should be negotiated between students. The next element is parts, which are the artifacts, documents, and codes, which can often be racially biased. Antiracist writing assessment parts answer student questions like how to read a rubric, how to answer a question a certain way, and why they are doing a certain type of questioning. The third element is purpose, as teachers have certain purposes for writing assessment. All ecological purposes change and evolve over time but relate to engaging students in the matter at hand. The fourth element is people, which relates to the students in the classroom. People in writing assessment ecologies are influenced by the location they’re in. They are classed, gendered, complex, and racialized and are observed on how they change the assessment ecology. The fifth ecological element is processes, which entails assessing writing, always moving in a chronological order. Students are asked to engage in the processes of the assessment with the teacher as it usually pertains to draft writing. Products make up the sixth ecological element which are the “direct and indirect consequences that occur in and from writing assessment ecologies.” A direct consequence would be graded work and an indirect consequence would be how a student perceives their edited or graded writing draft. The last ecological element is places, like writing groups, evaluation rubric, the classroom, etc., which can all be examined. Some ecologies happen in multiple places while others happen in just one. All of these elements help students understand how their writing is judged.
LT
6/22/2021 11:31:18 am
For me, this is why teaching is so exhausting. I am always thinking of three things when I create an assignment and when I evaluate it: 1) how much time will it take students to do this project and how much time do I have to help them in class to do it (and what sorts of things can I do to help them do well in the assignment); 2) what will they end up doing with it? Is it a draft they need to revise? Is it an assignment they will do a lot of times so they can learn to do it better with the right feedback? Will they shove it in a drawer and never look at it again? Is it stuff that is just a way to start to figure something else out? 3) How much time do I have to read and respond to student writing and where is that time best spent? (sometimes the hardest to judge. And then I think there is a fourth/fifth: what do I know about this student, what do I know about how our class is functioning as a community of writers/learners, what do I know about how this assignment is working--or not working--this particular semester?
Gabriel El Khoury and David Golden
6/22/2021 11:10:45 am
In chapter two, Inoue forwards what he describes as an “ecology of assessment,” an explicitly interconnected environment in a constant state of fluctuation. Everything in the ecology furthers an end: the expansion of knowledge, both on the part of the teacher and the student. Students reflect their environments, and they take to heart the suggestions and criticisms they encounter in the classroom. Inoue’s “ecology of assessment” is effectively antiracist because it puts everyone on an equal playing field, it removes biases, and affords students an experience that counters what has commonly been known as the hegemonic way of doing things: evaluating students based on the individual expectations of educators. Inoue urges educators to make students lords over their own learning.
Aliyah Pires
6/22/2021 11:27:26 am
I feel like this chapter correlates to chapter four as it talks about the ecology of assessment more deeply. It is true that everyone needs to be put on an equal playing field and in chapter four we see it being put in play in a classroom. Students are able to be judged based on the amount of work they put out rather than the quality. We see students being able to step out of the comfort zone that many other classes put them in. This way, quality of writing is explored in a different perspective. This makes it antiracist as it allows for many different cultural perspectives to be explored through writing without the student being worried that it would affect their grade.
Elizabeth Cheesman
6/22/2021 11:31:08 am
This chapter shines a light on the role of environments. It is not just the teacher who needs to work on being anti-racist, it is also the children who need to practice as well because to have an anti-racist classroom there needs to be open discussions and team work to make a comfortable environment for everyone. Reflection in classrooms is underestimated but the chapter argues that all members of the classroom need to be reflective and transparent and honest in what they notice and what they want to change for it to happen. Sometimes teachers think so much about their power and control over students, when in reality, the most effective anti-racist classrooms have students be an equal member and children have some control over their learning experience. To have an anti-racist classroom, you need to have a classroom where all people are learning together through each person's individual story and identity.
Aliyah Pires & Lauren Wrigley
6/22/2021 11:15:51 am
Chapter 4 focused on what the ecology of an assessment would look like in a chapter by looking at Inoue’s writing class at Fresno State, which was a project-based course in which college students would be researching and writing research papers. Grading contract that establishes expectations for the class that reassures students that their writing will be assessed based on labor and quantity rather than the quality of the final product. He measures labor by the parts of the ecology, which include: time spent on the activity, length of the product, and whether their writing addressed the instructions. Labor activities included: reading, writing, reflecting, labor journaling, assessing, and projecting. The students in this class played a role in each part of the assessment ecology, including creating their own rubrics to assess their own and each other’s writing. Another part of the assessment ecology is the refection process that was incorporated with every assignment. Through the process of focusing on the labor that produces that writing, students can effectively learn about the qualities that make their writing better.
Emma Healy
6/22/2021 11:26:09 am
This chapter helps me better understand how a writing assessment ecology can be antiracist based on the grading contract. Students are aware of how they will be graded, which is measured by labor. Students are able to create their own grading tools or rubrics to assess their own work and their classmates. Students aren't just confined to one style of grading or assessing, but it becomes a much more diverse process. Every student comes into a classroom with different backgrounds and advocating for student success through this type of assessment is so important. This makes for a more antiracist classroom ecology environment where students aren't as limited to their work and expectations.
LT
6/22/2021 11:27:20 am
One thing I'm still working on in my own practice is thinking about how to bring students more into the development of the assessment. I've tried to do this in different ways. I tried asking students what they wanted to learn about in a 400 level course at the beginning of the semester and that has not been successful. Folks were like "what are we paying you for"--which is about power. I wanted to give them this power that they didn't really want or didn't feel they should have. I've also tried this in 301--but at the midpoint of the semester. that's been more successful. But on a project to project basis, I have not asked students to be as engaged in determining how to evaluate the assignment. It's part of my own bias. I don't want students just saying "how hard I tried" which is totally subjective and out of my control. I need to find a way to balance what I want out of an assignment and what students value.
Gabriel El Khoury
6/22/2021 11:28:00 am
Your post brilliantly breaks down the components of what constitutes a labor-based approach to the classroom, and it reinforces many of the arguments put forward in chapter two. Having labor as one of "the [primary] parts of the ecology" allows for student time and work to be converted into a mark which reflects this. By shifting evaluation away from achieving grades and taking into account the effort of individual students, this also helps to equalize student differences. Students, irrespective of their backgrounds, come to the classroom and earn their grades according to the work they afford to the cultivation of a healthy ecology, an environment which encompasses students and teachers alike.
David Golden
6/22/2021 11:30:58 am
The mention of labor by the parts of ecology is very similar to the chapter that I had to read. In it, Inoue discusses how students and teachers reflect on their environments. If we remove these inherent biases there can be an equal playing field. I like that your group mentioned how students should be assessed on their ecology. If students and teachers focused more on the labor and effort that goes into the skill of writing then that will remove any unfair environment that may be in place. The connection between effort and expectations is extremely important when one is going to be assessed. Educators should embrace critical thinking as that will liberate the classroom and make it a more antiracist environment.
Sarah Egan
6/22/2021 11:32:38 am
Teachers are involved in the function of race in their classroom writing assessments. It is important for educators to note that students reflect their environments and everyone needs to be apart of the experience in assessing writing. Students should have roles in the assessment ecology because this helps to learn about skills that could make their writing more effective.
Alexis Medeiros
6/22/2021 11:27:33 am
Reading someone else's chapter helps me to understand how something can be antiracist and an assessment of ecology. For my chapter, Inoue analyzed how thins work together in seven parts and when you take away one of those seven parts the ecology or relationship of the assessment doesn't function in the ways that it should. This means that by reading someone else's chapter's I can recognize that the previous chapter wouldn't function in the ways that it should if the other chapter did not happen before. It shows simply how the chapters work together to make the point of the argument. Assignments can be antiracist by providing clear direction on what is expected of all students throughout the assignment. By reading someone else's chapter I can see how our class functions in the same way. Our class outlines what is expected of each assignment and each assignment is modeled so that way it is not racist but indeed antiracist.
Ten
6/22/2021 09:47:26 pm
I believed when I read other people chapter it's kinda helps me understand what they wrote, and guide me to my respond. Inoue explain each step how thins work together and how you should learn about these seven steps. Inoue also explain how ecology and relationship assessment don't function. To my understanding that reading other someone chapter because each chapter can't be function. Each chapter have they own explain how they work and have some point for an argument. Every assignment should be have clear direction so the student won't have problem thought the assignment. In this class professor outline our class clear and understand and what we need to expected in the class. Every assignment have they own modeled . Leave a Reply. |
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