Journal Article

Dilemmas and Discourses of Learning to Write: Assessment as a Contested Site

Wohlwend, Karen E.

2009

Overview

Writing assessment is a contested site where competing discourses overlap and invoke conflicting expectations, creating dilemmas for teachers who want to do what they believe is best for children and fulfill their school’s writing targets. A critical look at assessment quandaries reveals surface dilemmas as clashes between overlapping discourses, freeing teachers to work with and against institutions that create the dilemmas and their immobilizing effects. To illustrate how competing discourses generate assessment dilemmas, I analyze data examples from emergent writing activity by a group of children at a kindergarten writing table, looking closely at the student’s and teacher’s actions through the lenses of several prevalent discourses that explain early writing development: maturation discourse, skills mastery discourse, intentionality discourse, multimodal genre discourse, social practices discourse, and sociopolitical discourse (adapted from Ivanic, 2004).

• Publisher: National Council of Teachers of English
• Subject: Beginning Writing / Child Development / Children / Children & youth / Childrens literature / Childrens writing / Classroom communication / Classrooms / Discourse Analysis / Educational evaluation / Emergent Literacy / Kindergarten / Kindergarten education / Learning / Literacy / Literary criticism / No Child Left Behind Act 2001 / Preschool Teachers / School districts / Skills / Student behavior / Student Evaluation / Students / Suburban Schools / Teacher Attitudes / Teachers / Teaching / Teaching Methods / Writing (Composition) / Writing Evaluation / Writing instruction / Writing teachers / Writing Tests / Young Children