This talk will explore a central question for all teachers who use and assess writing: How can we engage in antiracist writing assessment work with our students, or more specifically, how can we address the white supremacy that is inherent in our judging practices in the academy? After considering some of the history of racism around language use, the presentation moves to describe a practice that offers one way to engage in antiracist writing assessment—conceptualizing writing assessment as a larger ecology in and around the classroom.
Asao B. Inoue is Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and Director of University Writing and the Writing Center at the University of Washington, Tacoma. He is a member of the Executive Board of the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA), and the Assistant Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). Among his various articles and chapters on writing assessment and race and racism studies, his article “Theorizing Failure in U.S. Writing Assessments” won the 2014 CWPA Outstanding Scholarship Award. His co-edited collection Race and Writing Assessment (2012) won the 2014 CCCC Outstanding Book Award for an edited collection. More recently, his book Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing for a Socially Just Future (2015) was published by WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press. In November of 2016, he guest co-edited a special issue of College English on writing assessment as social justice, and he is currently finishing a co-edited collection on the same topic.
Professor Inoue will also conduct a workshop for graduate students earlier in the day on March 23 in Denney 311. The precise time is TBD.
