Who we are(n't) assessing: Racializing language and writing assessment in writing program administration

Decisions about writing assessment are rooted in racial and linguistic identity; the consequences for many writing assessment decisions are often reflective of the judgments made about who does and does not deserve opportunities for success, opportunities historically denied to students of color and linguistically diverse writers. Put simply, assessment creates or denies opportunity structures.Because writing assessment is also racially and linguistically affected by the identities of those performing assessment, my role as a writing program administrator (WPA) becomes a social justice role that challenges racial and linguistic biases and interrogates institutional structures, so that all students have the same opportunities for success. In this vignette, I share an example of an assessment initiative that illustrates how writing assessment is affected by racialized and linguistic identities. In this case, the institutional dynamic is complicated by the fact that some white female writing instructors resisted my authority. In this context, the untenured (now tenured), bilingual, woman WPA of color potentially becomes positioned as the defender of students of color and linguistically diverse students who would give inordinate resources to those writers. While no WPA is immune to resistance from graduate students and writing instructors, the questions raised in this space require us to consider what roles college deans, department chairs, and white allies in our organization might fulfill to support WPAs of color. I conclude this narrative by offering strategies for how allies in positions of authority can better support the work of non-white WPAs. This support, I argue, is central to advocating social justice in WPA work and writing assessment.The Writing ProgramWestern Michigan University (WMU) is a four-year public research institution that enrolls about 23,000 students a year. The average high school GPA of entering students is 3.41, most of whom come from in state (87 percent). Its six-year graduation rate is 54 percent. At its main campus in Kalamazoo, Michigan, 21 percent of undergraduate students enrolled are students of color.The WMU First-Year Writing Program serves approximately 2,500 students each year. The WMU Writing Program offers two courses: ENGL 1000, a developmental writing course, and ENGL 1050 (Proficiency I: College Writing), a general education course. WMU currently offers approximately 115 sections of ENGL 1050 in online and face-to-face formats each year.Writing program instructors include funded graduate students who are enrolled in English department graduate programs in creative writing, English literature, and English education. Additional writing program instructors include non-tenure-track instructors, most of whom are alumni of English department graduate programs. The majority of the writing program instructors (twentyfive out of forty-five) are white, monolingual women. As such, they represent different racial and linguistic backgrounds from many of the student-applicants. There are only three instructors-besides me-currently teaching in the program who self-identify as people of color; only one of these instructors identifies as a second language speaker and writer.Creating Opportunity Structures Through AssessmentOur 2014-15 ENGL 1050 Writing Initiative was an assessment project designed to give students who are failing or consistently averaging below a C by midterm a second chance at passing ENGL 1050 with a minimum grade of C. We chose C as the cut score because, while a D is technically a passing grade, no student is able to declare a major at WMU without the minimum grade of C. We therefore define C as the necessary grade needed to pass. Through this initiative, students who are not passing ENGL 1050 are admitted to an ENGL 1050 intensive section (ENGL 1050I), where they participate in a six-week intensive program that requires that they make up work and performances from the previous eight weeks of their former ENGL 1050 course. …