Epistemologies, relationships, values, and practices: Reconfiguring writing assessment through feminist qualitative methodologies

The field of composition studies has benefitted from applications of feminist, materialist, postcolonial and similar critical theories to the teaching and study of written texts. In addition, critical theories continue to make a significant impact on the teaching and study of writing and other co-fields of inquiry such as writing center and writing program administration scholarship. Despite these advancements and explorations of how social constructionist theories of learning impact the teaching of composition, writing assessment scholarship lags behind. This project engages this issue by heeding Brian Huot's recommendation in (Re)Articulating Writing Assessment to treat assessment as a form of research that helps teachers and writing program administrators to begin "asking and answering questions about students' writing and the programs designed to teach students to write" (148). In my dissertation project I argue that scholarship produced in the field of feminist qualitative research (FQR) can help us better engage assessment as research and continue the field of composition studies' work in applying critical theory to the teaching and study of writing. I demonstrate how FQR notions such as collaboration, negotiation, empowerment, and reflection can impact writing assessment scholarship. I also provide examples of how such scholarship can impact assessment practices in college level writing courses and in college writing programs. In writing classrooms, writing assessment practices informed by FQR scholarship can help educators better understand how context impacts their work and can help students develop their own assessment abilities and learn to negotiate the writing values of multiple audiences. To explore how FQR might impact writing program administration, I analyze the work of assessment scholar Bob Broad and identify places of similarity and difference between his work and a reconfiguration of writing assessment informed by feminist qualitative research methodologies.