Writing Assessment and the Revolution in Digital Texts and Technologies

Writing and the teaching of writing is changing at a rapid pace. How can educators understand writing assessment as and with technology in the 21st-century classroom? Michael Neal contends that new technologies are neither the problem nor the solution. Instead, educators need to tap into digital resources only inasmuch as they promote writing and its assessment as rhetorical with authentic purposes, audiences, and contexts. In this accessible text, Michael Neal provides an innovative framework for the formative and holistic assessment of students’ digital composition at the college and high school level. Chapters address the recent evolution of writing assessment tools, the growing trend of computer automated scoring, and the immense future potential of technology-assisted assessments.

Book Features:

Provides frameworks to help teachers evaluate student-produced multi-media writing.
Evaluates a wide range of current assessment technologies.
Addresses concerns about the current trend of machine-scored composition.
Suggests ways teachers can implement digital technologies to improve student writing as well as engage learners.

Michael Neal is an assistant professor in the English Department at Florida State University

“The stress of external pressures on the assessment of student compositions, writing programs, and educational institutions has, in far too many cases, resulted in a painful misalignment of our work as educators.In his provocative book, Michael Neal notes that teaching writing and assessing writing are inextricably linked to one another."

—From the Foreword by Janet Swenson, Associate Dean, College of Arts and Letters, Michigan State University

“Grounding his inquiry in stories and humor, Michael Neal presents a lucid exploration of how technologies and assessments illuminate and shape each other.  Remarkably, Neal blends a robust command of relevant theories with a deep reverence for the nuanced complexities of actual students and teachers working in specific learning contexts.”

—Bob Broad, professor of English, Illinois State University