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What would such an assessment system look like?

We've been talking some about assessment and literacy this summer. I'm not sure we resolved any great understanding or ideal strategy to make "constructivist" assessment approaches happen programmatically, but we did come up with a reason why: literacy which embraces medium and message or "context," must happen synchronously (we need to write the graphical and the textual at the same time, for instance). And many "assessors" have been conditioned to realize multi-modal means of expression as disparate elements. They're two sides, perhaps, of the same coin. But that coin is forever been flipped.

Hamp-Lyons and Condon are attacking a major problem: how to REALLY make assessment constructive and process-oriented--how to integrate instruction and assessment. I used to think all changes in education come from the students. I think this one comes from the students, but it also--and perhaps synchronously--has to come from teachers and administrators. The three groups the authors point out: the "assessment community," k-12 teachers and students, and post-secondary teachers and students.