Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future

by Asao B. Inoue

In ANTIRACIST WRITING ASSESSMENT ECOLOGIES, Asao B. Inoue theorizes classroom writing assessment as a complex system that is "more than" its interconnected elements. To explain how and why antiracist work in the writing classroom is vital to literacy learning, Inoue incorporates ideas about the white racial habitus that informs dominant discourses in the academy and other contexts.

Inoue helps teachers understand the unintended racism that often occurs when teachers do not have explicit antiracist agendas in their assessments. Drawing on his own teaching and classroom inquiry, Inoue offers a heuristic for developing and critiquing writing assessment ecologies that explores seven elements of any writing assessment ecology: power, parts, purposes, people, processes, products, and places.

Asao B. Inoue is Director of University Writing and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Tacoma. He has published on writing assessment, validity, and composition pedagogy in Assessing Writing, The Journal of Writing Assessment, Composition Forum, and Research in the Teaching of English, among other journals and collections. His co-edited collection Race and Writing Assessment (2012) won the CCCC's Outstanding Book Award for an edited collection.

Genres: Teaching, Nonfiction, Writing, Social Justice, Education

348 pages, Paperback

Published November 8, 2015

Reviews

[Proustitute (on hiatus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Often writing teachers claim to assess everyone by the same standards or expectations because this practice is inherently fair. If only we could stop being so fair, we might have a chance at making serious antiracist change. Fairness is often articulated as a white liberal value, but it often protects white interests by maintaining racist practices and effects by appealing to an abstract liberal principle, such as, 'everyone should be treated the same.' This value makes no sense when we try to transplant the abstract principle of fairness to, say, fruit. Is an orange better than an apple because it is juicier? Of course not, they are just different. And their differences are acknowledged and accepted. But when we deny racialized difference in the writing classroom, we tend to judge apples by their orangeness. I realize the metaphor breaks down, but my point is: it is not fairness that we need in antiracist writing assessment ecologies, or any antiracist project—it is not judgment by the exact same standard that we need—it is revolutionary change, radically different methods, structures, and assumptions about the way things are now and how to distribute privileges."

[Lisajean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Inoue identifies the fact that "more Blacks, Latinos, and multilingual students relatively speaking perform worse on writing assessments than their white peers in writing classrooms" and takes this as proof that the writing assessment are racist. However, he does not provide sufficient proof to convince me that this is the entire, or even the primary, cause of the disparity in scores. It worries me that he jumps so quickly to radically rethinking writing assessments because I'm afraid that in doing so, it will lead to results that look equal but instead obscure an underlying problem. For example, what if the larger cause of the score gaps is teachers with low expectations who pass students of color because they think they're doing the best they can? Or students are being accepted to schools they aren't academically prepared for? Or first generation college students who need support to adapt to this environment? Or stereotype threat causing these students to write worse in high-pressure environments?

I almost think there's no point reviewing this because my stance is so far removed from the author's. He considers grading students' writing based on how well it corresponds to Standardized Edited American English to be perpetuating white supremacy culture. While I could see how his suggestions would be useful in middle school or early high school, to help students of color engage with writing and find their voices, at the university level, his approach, practically speaking, is condemning these students to ineligibility from employment in a wide range of positions. To be clear, when I say grading based on the standards of SEAE, I'm not talking about grammar and punctuation; Inoue takes issue even with assumptions about what constitutes a well-organized, on-topic essay.

This is the central tension I face when approaching anti-racist education with my students. Do I want my classroom to be anti-racist? Yes, of course. Do I want to prepare my students to succeed in the real world? Yes, of course. Are those two things in tension? Sometimes, unfortunately, because the real world is not built on the pillars of anti-racism. That means that I both recognize that writing assessments are centered around upper-middle class, White standards of writing... and yet, I can't reject those assessments because that is how students' writing will indeed be assessed once they graduate, by people in positions of power evaluating their resume to determine whether or not to share that power with my students. I'm willing to make compromises to meet that larger goal of giving my students access to that power. I've settled for an uneasy balance, giving my students abundant oportunities to write and speak in their authentic voices but also being explicit about when they are expected to adopt SEAE and why.

Inoue is not willing to do so, a position that is, clearly, well-intentioned and well-informed, but one that I fear will do his students more harm than good. His counterargument is that students who speak/write with other language varieties can indeed succeed in academic or civic life. As proof, he cites the widespread success of hip hop and rap, declining to give other examples of how to succeed in America without mastering the dominant discourse... I find this mind-boggling and intentionally obtuse.

Also, good lord, I'm sick of Marxism creeping in to books that I otherwise enjoy. It's very frustrating. I got nervous when he started talking about assessment as "a particular kind of labor" and my fears were confirmed. He suggests valuing "labor over so-called quality," which is ironic because, in Writing for Equity, the author points out that judging effort can be influenced by racial biases and that the fairest approach is to focus only on quality. But how can you define quality when, as Inoue shockingly claims, the very premise "that we need a standard to judge students against... is racist"?

One thing that made me wonder is his statement that teachers say "strength, authenticity, and honesty" are the hallmarks of strong voice in student writing; I strongly agree - indeed, just this week, my colleagues and I identified "vulnerability" as one of the core components of student writing that demonstrated strong voice. Inoue claims that these characteristics are linked to whiteness but does not support that assertion. This is characteristic of my issue with this book - if his claims are true, I would have to dramatically adjust my teaching practice. Not only am I open to that, I want to change if I'm unknowingly harming my students. But, for the same reason, I'm hesitant to make dramatic changes based on arguments that are not well-supported. For now, I can't think of any way that this book will change my practice. I just don't know how to teach if I "really don't know what our students can or should ultimately learn."

Anyway, after that rant, I guess I would recommend this book. It's thought-provoking, and it is important to consider how to define "good writing," how to assess student writing, and how to create an anti-racist classroom in a racist world, even if I don't always agree with his conclusions. Also, maybe this is unfair to note, but I found his style funny. So much writing against SEAE and yet his own writing is a painful example of jargon-laden academic writing? He addresses this point directly, stating that "my discourse is an indicator of my subversive success at making a local SEAE and dominant discourse my own, making that discourse less white and more universal by diversifying it." Ok, so why can't we help our students do that? Diversify the dominant discourse rather than condemn them to forever writing outside of it?

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very strong, but also theoretical and practical. I have already been able to use several ideas from the book.

[Eric Camarillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb. There were points in the text where I felt as if I was talking to myself. Inoue articulates precise and, sometimes, ugly truths about writing assessments in writing classes. His theory for assessment ecologies is fascinating and, while the heuristic could be more easily applicable, I think Inoue manages to craft a text that would be beneficial to any teacher of English at any level. I'll definitely be giving this a deeper review, but I highly recommend this to anyone who find themselves in an English classroom.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m 2/3 of the way through, but I’m going to have to set it down for a while because I’m reading it on my laptop. I am thankful for this book, however, for opening my eyes to so many things, and I look forward to getting back to finishing it.

[Thomas Cooney · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a fraud! I had to listen to this clown as part of my former employer’s re-education camp/PC bullshit. But I couldn’t quite put my finger on why he was such an arrogant fraud until I read this by a REAL intellectual, Theodore Dalrymple, who writes:

<
Still, it must be done, or rubbish will rule the day; for the problem with the spouters of rubbish is that they are serious, in intent if not in thought. They want to change the world, and often succeed because at first no one takes them at their word. All that is needed for evil to flourish, Edmund Burke is said to have said, though no one can find where or when exactly, is for good men to do nothing. This is right in sentiment if not strictly in attribution.

Two kind readers have drawn my attention to a person called Asao B. Inoue, of whom I had previously not heard, who teaches writing at University of Washington Tacoma. This deeply conventional corrupter of youth has delivered himself of the pseudo-original opinion that American grammar is inherently racist. It is true that it is often not very good; but that, alas, is true of the speech and writing of the people of all known nations.

To give a flavor of Professor Inoue’s polysyllabic pseudo-ratiocination, I can do no better, alas, than to quote him:

“Antiracist writing assessment ecologies explicitly pay close attention to the relationships that make up the ecology, relationships among people, discourses, judgments, artifacts created and circulated. They ask students to reflect upon them, negotiate them, and construct them. Antiracist writing assessment ecologies also self-consciously (re)produce power arrangements in order to examine and perhaps change them. When designing an antiracist writing ecology, a teacher can focus students’ attention on a few of the ecological elements…which inter-are. This means addressing others, such as power relations and the ecological places where students problematize their existential assessment situations.”

This is a quotation, at random, from Professor Inoue’s book, Antiracist Writing Ecology: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future.

I have not torn this passage out of context because tearing Professor Inoue’s prose out of context is as impossible as tearing fog. There are, in this instance, 300 pages of it, and I congratulate in advance anyone who reads it all. He deserves full marks for persistence, if not for a wise employment of his time.

It might, of course, be thought that a man like Professor Inoue could do little damage. It is unlikely that ghetto youth will ever go on the rampage shouting Problematize our existential assessment situations! It has other problems on its mind, such as police brutality and the price of crack. Moreover, although Professor Inoue’s prose is hardly Gibbonian, the fact is that he himself writes in approximately grammatical form; in other words, he uses standard grammar. No doubt he would argue that this is because he is forced to do so, that the vicious racists of University of Washington Tacoma would sack him if he didn’t, but this is no excuse: He doesn’t have to work there and could take another job, though for the moment I cannot think what it could be.

The point is, however, that he probably demands of his students that they reproduce his thoughts—or rather, opinions—not only in content but in form, that is to say in approximately standard grammar. Whether this is hypocritical of him rather depends on whether he is aware of it.

Now one swallow doesn”€™t make a summer, and one professor doesn’t destroy a civilization. But Professor Inoue is not alone in his disapproval of standard grammar, very far from it: Pedagogically, it has become almost an orthodoxy. In his book The Language Instinct, Professor Steven Pinker argues that, because all forms of human language have their rules, a standard language is only a language with an army and a navy, as it were.

Whatever else may be said of this view, it is certainly socially conservative in its effects, for to discourage impoverished children from learning a standard language is to ensure (unless they become sportsmen or the like) that they remain impoverished for the rest of their lives, not only economically but most likely in intellect, too. To be intelligent but not to have the tools to be able to use one’s intelligence is a terrible fate, and dangerous too.

Absurdity in the modern world, then, is not just funny (though it is funny); it has harmful effects. And politically correct thinking seems to have insinuated itself into the nooks and crannies of our culture. People who have utterly conventional thoughts by the standards of political correctness think they are daring, and that subversion consists of saying what everyone else (everyone in the tout-Paris sense of the word) says. On a recent visit to my nearest municipal art gallery, I found an exhibition of the work of a woman that explored“€”dreadful word when applied to art”€”ethnicity and sexism. Oh, God! I thought, and it turned out to be the usual publicly funded rubbish of the kind that could find no private buyer.

As ever with such exhibitions, the book of comments afterward was more interesting than the exhibition itself; and opening it, my eyes fell straight on the following words:

Excellent subversions of “€œgirlie”€™ patriarchalist/consume capitalist iconography. Liked the more straightforward agit-prop collages too. From modernism to postmodernism in one room. Excellent.

Do people who use the word agitprop as a term of praise never tire of agitation and propaganda? We usually think of the latter as an imposition on or as a violation of minds, but for some it is restful as it obviates the need for subtler thought. It is for them what foolish ideas are to the journalist: a kind of mental rest-home.>>

Thank you, Dalrymple!

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful call to action that has made me rethink the ways I've structured my writing classrooms.

[Aimee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for class; review written for class: As a future educator, I believe that teaching is inherently political, especially teaching the humanities. Language is a powerful political device; knowing how to wield it can make or break a person’s career, social life, or reputation. One’s use of language is influenced by their identities, including race, which is the focus of Inoue’s book. As a white person from a primarily white town and school district, my experience with both language and education is limited. In order to serve my future students, I need to educate myself on the ways race influences language, and I need to make sure my English classes will not be biased toward white students.

Inoue’s main argument is that the writing assessments typically given to students are insufficient and lacking in cultural awareness. He cites similar metrics such as IQ, which was designed using white standards of intelligence and utilized for decades to prove the superiority of white people over people of color.
His critique of the reliance on Standardized Edited American English (SEAE) is one of the book’s strong points. He highlights that depending on race and class, the English a person speaks may not align with the rules of SEAE, so grading based on the grammar and structure expectations of one specific type of English is unfair as it does not represent all students’ knowledge of language.

I was also fascinated by Inoue’s description of the “white habitus” in writing classrooms, including individualism, logic, rationalism, and control. He explains that these values are not inherently racist, but their dominance leaves little room for other forms of knowledge or success. In particular, he highlights the way white hyper-individualism places blame on an individual for doing poorly on an assessment, even if many did poorly, which could indicate a larger flaw in the assessment.

Inoue does make some fairly speculative arguments throughout the book, particularly when analyzing data that has many more variables and possible causes than those he addresses. He does admit to leaps in judgment when commenting on samples of writing from real students, explaining that he does not aim to prove that his reading of their essays is objectively correct, but to show that a racialized reading of student writing should be considered. He believes that a student’s racial identity is in some ways omnipresent, that it may be lurking under the surface of their writing, and that educators and assessors should expand their imaginations to include these interpretations rather than shying away from them.

Inoue’s framework for an antiracist assessment ecology is strong. It includes seven key features: power, parts, purpose, people, processes, products, and places. He describes each in detail, providing a definition, along with examples of how it can be employed to enforce white hegemony and how educators can change it to instead challenge the white habitus. Some of the examples provided are not as specific as I would like in terms of how they apply to race and how changes can be made, but most are adequate.

Inoue’s suggestions for building an antiracist writing assessment ecology are interesting,
focusing on a labor-based grading contract rather than one based on performance. His assessment of student performance is separate from the grades, which he believes helps students find purpose in their writing and allows more room for feedback that can actually improve student writing because it is not attached to the stress of a grade. As someone who is wary of the typical grading system, I could see myself employing a similar contract to combat racism and other negative tendencies of the usual system.

Perhaps the most impactful argument Inoue makes is that the writing classroom must be a place where students feel comfortable sharing their racial experiences and critiquing the methods used to assess them. The subject of race cannot be avoided in a class that is so heavily political, and the connections between race and language should be explored by the teacher and students together.

[Ingrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this was a bit of a chore, and I struggled to imagine how I might adapt this approach for my own writing courses, especially given the time constraints I face at my college. But this book challenged me to critically reflect on my own teaching practices: why am I structuring my courses and assignments this way? What assumptions am I making (about students, about language, about the nature and value and purpose of education) that influence what I do and assign? How can I design my courses to be more equitable?