Assessing the Portfolio: Principles for Practice, Theory & Research: A Review
On July 2, 2000, I was sitting in Sinatra Park along the Hudson River thinking about this review and wondering how five of us would come together to make something coherent out of assessment and portfolios. As I looked at the Manhattan skyline, a dark wing of a plane--one of these B-something or another stealth fighters--flew over. It was stunning because it was so silent, and yet I KNEW that a weapon like that could wreck havoc on the lives of many. This one--I’m sure--was going to be part of the 4th of July celebrations.by Liz Hamp-Lyons and William Condon
Hampton Press, 2000
ISBN: 1-572-73230-X $22.95 216 pp.Review by
Carl Whithaus, Stevens Institute of Technology and Graduate Center, CUNY
Anthony Atkins, Ball State University
Liza Bruna, Kingsborough CC and Graduate Center, CUNY
Tim McCormack, City College, CUNY and Graduate Center, CUNY
Rich Rice, Ball State University
What struck me then, and what strikes me again now as I review what Tony, Liza, Tim, Rich, and I wrote over the last two months: the ways in which writing assessment is like this large, dark and silent wing of an airplane. Writing assessment is present in (or behind) all of our teaching; it is the commodity, the yard stick, and the thing many of us do not want to spend much time talking about. Pedagogy is much more fun to research than assessment! And yet, we all owe our lively hoods to writing assessment, and, as writing teachers, we all take part in writing assessment and evaluation. I do not like to acknowledge the fact that American military might play a part in providing the material conditions in which I live and I work, but it does. I do not like to acknowledge the fact that writing assessment tools play a part in providing the material conditions in which I live and I work, but they do.
Simply demonizing the military-industrial complex or institutionalized writing assessment programs does little good. This group review attempts to chart the careful work in Hamp-Lyon and Condon's Assessing The Portfolio and to ask questions about the broader implications of such a study in terms of history and contexts of writing assessment in American higher education.
