PA reflective and activist computer-mediated pedagogy does not ignore the difficult questions of reading and evaluation. Drawing on work in portfolio assessment (Belanoff, Dickson, Elbow, Yancey), reader response theories (Bleich, Brandt, Hunt, Iser, Rosenblatt), and transactional rhetoric (Rogers, Scott), I argue for a move towards interactive methods of evaluation–sympathetic, constructive readings that are as venturesome and as willing to take risks as the student hypertext.

In Evaluating Writing, Charles R. Cooper and Lee Odell suggest that one means to make the reading of essays more productive is to "develop our ability to describe students' writing" (viii). Hypertext and reflection upon hypertext as a medium encourage us to look at student works and the criteria for evaluating them anew when theorists and teachers work with a relatively new medium, we must describe as well as evaluate the rhetorical moves made in student hypertext. Published accounts of reading student-created hypertext rejoice in the postmodern, multi-genre works created by the students (Landow), praise the pedagogical benefits of hypertext (Carver, Jonassen, Lehrer, Sharples), or wrestle with the application of print-based criteria to hypertext works (Blair and Takayoshi, Fischer). All of these studies move us forward because they look at student hypertext and ask the questions: What ARE these things? What is going on in these works?

By inviting students to talk back to the teacher-reader, I argue that we can extend the descriptive process begun by teacher-scholars to include students. This dialogic approach to student-created hypertext makes the questions and problems of evaluation visible. Top-down analyses and descriptions give way to negotiated understandings of what students are attempting to accomplish. Dialogizing response (Gay) and using portfolio-based approaches to negotiate the criteria for judging effective writing (Murphy and Smith), we transform evaluation from a one-way discourse into an interactive process.