Social Justice Through Antiracist Writing Assessment
On October 27, 2017, the UO Composition Program hosted a symposium that brought together teachers of writing intensive courses, campus leaders in antiracism efforts, and stakeholders working toward curricular reform to consider different designs for inclusive writing assignments and learning environments. The symposium featured a writing assessment workshop led by Dr. Asao B. Inoue, whose award-winning social justice-focused work in Rhetoric and Composition engages the disproportionate barriers to success for students of color, first-generation college students, and other students from diverse backgrounds.
Dr. Inoue’s workshops on contract-based grading and equitable evaluation brought many insights to our UO teaching community. This symposium opened up conversations about the implicit ecologies of white privilege in our classrooms. It also taught us to think about how to work towards more equitable spaces and teaching practices. And it provided us with a framework and implementation strategies for contract-based grading.
Below you’ll find links to all the handouts from the two workshops Dr. Inoue offered:
Workshop Slides – Here you’ll find the PowerPoint presentation slides Dr. Inoue used in the morning workshop, A Social Justice Framework for Anti-Racist Writing Assessment: Labor-Based Grading Contracts. Below, you can also view the presentation in the window or download a PDF version from the link.
A Social Justice Framework for Anti-Racst Writing Assessment – Labor-Based Grading Contracts – Here you’ll find the rationale behind, as well as a framework for, establishing labor-based grading in writing classrooms.
Habits of White Discourse – Here you’ll find a list of defining features of white privilege in classroom ecologies, compiled collaboratively between Dr. Inoue and his students over several years. This collection of defining features helps us to recognize and address aspects of our classroom environments that inadvertently privilege particular populations.
The Practice of Problem-Posing, the Nature of Judgement – Here you’ll find the handout distributed during the afternoon workshop. The handout walks teachers through an assessment of their own feedback and heightens awareness of the ways in which particular kinds of feedback might inadvertently support the success of students who are already set up to do well at educational institutions.
Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies – Here you’ll find a definition of antiracist writing assessment ecologies, as well practical approaches and principles for working towards antiracist practices in our classrooms and grading.
Charter for Compassion – Here you’ll find the handout Dr. Inoue uses for guiding students to feel they are part of a community that respectfully and empathetically exchanges feedback to foster a successful learning environment for everyone in the class.
Sample Labor Log – Here you’ll find a sample labor log that Dr. Inoue has students complete to keep track of their labor time for the course.
Sample Grading Contract – Here you’ll find an example of the labor-based grading contract Dr. Inoue uses in his writing classes.
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Asao B. Inoue
Dr. Inoue
Asao B. Inoue is a professor and the associate dean for Academic Affairs, Equity, and Inclusion in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts at Arizona State University. His research focuses on antiracist and social justice theory and practices in writing assessments. He is the 2019 Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, and has been a past member of the CCCC Executive Committee, and the Executive Board of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. Among his many articles and chapters on writing assessment, race, and racism, his article, “Theorizing Failure in U.S. Writing Assessments” in Research in the Teaching of English, won the 2014 CWPA Outstanding Scholarship Award. His co-edited collection, “Race and Writing Assessment” (2012), won the 2014 NCTE/CCCC Outstanding Book Award for an edited collection. His book, “Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing for a Socially Just Future” (2015) won the 2017 NCTE/CCCC Outstanding Book Award for a monograph and the 2015 CWPA Outstanding Book Award. He also has published a co-edited collection, Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and The Advancement of Opportunity (2018), and a book, “Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom” (2019).
Publications
Books and Edited Collections
Inoue, Asao B. (2019). Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom. University Press of Colorado and WAC Clearinghouse.
Mya Poe, Inoue, Asao B., and Norbert Elliott (eds.). (2018) Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and The Advancement of Opportunity. University Press of Colorado and WAC Clearinghouse.
Inoue, Asao B. (2015). Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for A Socially Just Future. Fort Collins: Parlor Press/WAC Clearinghouse. Winner of the 2017 CCCC Outstanding Book Award for a monograph, and the 2015 CWPA Best Book Award.
Inoue, Asao B., and Poe, Mya (editors). (2012). Race and Writing Assessment. New York: Peter Lang. Winner of the 2014 CCCC Outstanding Book Award for an edited collection.
Journal Articles
Inoue, Asao B. (2019). “Classroom Writing Assessment as an Antiracist Practice: Confronting White Supremacy in the Judgements of Language.” Forthcoming in Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, 19.3.
Moore, Scott D., Sanchez, Rudolph J., Inoue, Asao B., Statham, Russel D., Zelezny, Lynnette, and Covino, William A. (2014). “Leveraging Technology to Alleviate Student Bottlenecks: The Self-Paced Online Tutorial – Writing (SPOT).” Journal of Continuing Higher Education 62.1, pp. 50-55.
Inoue, Asao B. (2014). “Theorizing Failure in U.S. Writing Assessments.” Research in the Teaching of English 48.3, 330-352. Winner of the 2014 CWPA Award for Outstanding Scholarship on Writing Program Administration (received in 2016).
Inoue, Asao B. (2007). “Articulating Sophistic Rhetoric as a Validity Heuristic for Writing Assessment.” The Journal of Writing Assessment 3.1, pp. 31-54.
Inoue, Asao B. (2004). “Community-Based Assessment Pedagogy.” Assessing Writing 9.3, pp. 208-238.
Inoue, Asao B. “CCCC Chair’s Address: How do We Language So People Stop Killing Each Other, Or What Do We Do About White Language Supremacy.” CCC 71.2 (Dec 2019).
Inoue, Asao B. “Antiracist Writing Pedagogy: Racialized Places of Labor and Listening.” Reflections on Antiracist Pedagogies: An SWR Discussion, blog post for SWR book series. SWR/NCTE (18 Dec 2017).
Inoue, Asao B. “Racism in Writing Programs and the CWPA.” Journal of the Council of Writing Program Administrators 40.1 (Fall 2016).
Inoue, Asao B. (2016). “Afterward: Narratives that Determine Writers and Social Justice Writing Center Work.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal 14.1.
Inoue, Asao B. (2016). “The Complications of Berlin’s Original Call to Teach Writing as Citizenship,” blog post for SWR book series. SWR/ NCTE (6 Dec 2016).
Inoue, Asao B. (2015). “The Living Scholarship of Composition Studies: A Case for Students-as-Scholarship,” response article to the CCCC statement on the Scholarship in Composition. College Composition and Communication 66.3, pp. 697-700.
Inoue, Asao B. (2010). “Engaging with Assessment Technologies: Responding to Valuing Diversity as a WPA,” WPA: Writing Program Administration 33.3, pp. 134-138.
Inoue, Asao B. (2009). “Self-Assessment As Programmatic Center: The First Year Writing Program and Its Assessment at Fresno State University.” Composition Forum 20, online journal (see reprint below in Book Chapters).
Inoue, Asao B. (2008). “A Reply to Peter Elbow on ‘Community-Based Assessment Pedagogy.” Assessing Writing 12.3, pp. 228-233.
Inoue, Asao B. (1999). “Teaching with Feeling: A Subjective Pedagogy.” Community College Humanities Review 20.2. pp. 136-57.
Book Chapters
Inoue, Asao B. (2019). “Afterword: Who Is Served, and Gets Served, in WPA Work?” In Staci Perryman-Clark and Collin Craig (eds.), Black Perspectives on Blackness in Writing Program Administration: From the Margins to the Center. Urbana: Studies in Writing And Rhetoric/NCTE, in review.
Inoue, Asao B. (2019). “Becoming in the New World.” Norbert Elliot and Alice Horning, eds. Talking Back: Senior Scholars Deliberate the Past, Present, and Future of Writing Studies. University Press of Colorado.
Inoue, Asao B. (2019). “Embrace the Opposition.” John Gallagher and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss, eds. Explanation Points: Publishing in Rhetoric and Composition. University of Colorado / Utah State University Press.
Inoue, Asao B. (2017). “Writing Assessment as the Conditions for Translingual Approaches: An Argument for Fairer Assessments.” In Bruce Horner and Laura Tetreault (Eds.), Crossing Divides: Exploring Translingual Writing Pedagogies and Programs. Logan: Utah State University Press. Collection is the winner of the 2018 MLA Mina P. Shaughnessy Book Award.
Inoue, Asao B. (2017). “What Does the Field of Writing Assessment Need? Or, How Asian and Asian American Rhetoric Can Help Writing Assessments Work Better.” In Jennifer Sano-Franchini, Terese Guinsatao Monberg, and Hyoejin Yoon (eds.), Building a Community, Having a Home: A History of the CCCC AAAC. Anderson, SC: New City Community Press/Parlor Press.
Inoue, Asao B. (2016). “Forward: On Antiracist Agendas.” In Frankie Condon & Vershawn A. Young (Eds.), Performing Antiracist Pedagogy. Anderson, SC: Parlor Press. pp. xi-xx.
Inoue, Asao B., and Richmond, Tyler. (2016). “Theorizing the Reflection Practices of Hmong College Students: Is ‘Reflection’ A Racialized Discourse?” co-written with Tyler Richmond. In Kathleen Blake Yancey (Ed.), A Rhetoric of Reflection. Logan: Utah State University Press. pp. 125-145.
Inoue, Asao B., and Scott, Tony. (2015). “Threshold Concept: Assessing Writing Shapes Contexts and Writing.” In Elizabeth Wardle and Linda Adler-Kasner (Eds.), Naming What We Know: Writing at the Threshold. Logan: Utah State University Press. pp. 29-31.
Inoue, Asao B. (2015). “Self-Assessment as Programmatic Center: The First Year Writing Program and Its Assessment at California State University, Fresno” (reprint with coda). In Mary Jo Reiff, Anis Bawarshi, Michelle Ballif, and Christian Weisser (Eds.), Ecologies of Writing Programs: Profiles of Writing Programs in Context. Anderson: Parlor Press. pp. 252-281.
Inoue, Asao B. (2014). “A Grade-less Writing Course that Focuses on Labor and Assessing.” In Deborah Teague and Ronald Lunsford (Eds.), First-Year Composition: From Theory to Practice. Lauer Series (Series Eds. Jenny Bay and Thomas Rickert). Anderson: Parlor Press. pp. 71-110.
Inoue, Asao B. (2012). “Racial Formations in Two Writing Assessments: Revisiting White and Thomas’ Findings on the English Placement Test After Thirty Years,” co-written with Mya Poe. In Norbert Elliot and Les Perelman (Eds.), Writing Assessment in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of Edward M. White. New York: Hampton Press. pp. 343-361.
Inoue, Asao B. (2012). “Racial Methodologies for Composition Studies: Reflecting on Theories of Race in Writing Assessment Research.” In Lee Nickoson and Mary P. Sheridan (Eds.), Writing Studies Research in Practice: Methods and Methodologies. Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 125-39.
Inoue, Asao B. (2012). “Grading Contracts: Assessing Their Effectiveness on Different Racial Formations.” In Asao B. Inoue and Mya Poe (Eds.), Race and Writing Assessment, (peer-reviewed through the press). New York: Peter Lang. pp. 79-94.
Inoue, Asao B. (2011). “Structuring Code Meshing into Educational Policy,” response Chapter on Policies for Code Meshing. In Vershawn Ashanti Young and Aja Martinez (Eds.), Code Meshing as World English: Policy, Pedagogy, Performance. Urbana: NCTE Press. pp. 95-98.
Inoue, Asao B. (2010). “Teaching the Rhetoric of Writing Assessment.” In Joseph Harris, John Miles, and Charles Paine (Eds.), Teaching With Student Texts. Logan: Utah State University Press. pp. 46-57.
Inoue, Asao B. (2009). “The Technology Of Writing Assessment And Racial Validity.” In Christopher S. Schreiner (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Assessment Technologies, Methods, and Applications in Higher Education. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. pp. 97-120.