College Composition and Communication Feb 2025

Constructivist Writing Placement: Repositioning Agency for More Equitable Placement through Collaborative Writing Placement Practices

Jennifer Burke Reifman ; Stacy Wittstock ; Tricia Serviss ; Beth Pearsall ; Dan Melzer

Abstract

This article presents a constructivist writing placement framework, developed from the study of two pilot iterations of a local writing placement mechanism at a large public research university. Through preliminary analysis of data from these pilots, we present a model of constructivist writing placement and demonstrate how it helps move conceptualizations of student agency as primarily housed within student exercise of choice toward more robust understandings and facilitation of student agency via placement. Extending recent calls to reconsider methodological traditions like directed self-placement to more explicitly account for educational equity issues, our two pilot assessments illustrate how we might reposition student agency within writing placement as emergent from situational interactions with faculty and the institutions they represent, rather than merely authorized by them.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2025-02-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc2025763423
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
Topics
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Citation context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Toth et al. (2026)
    Generative Artificial Intelligence, Writing Placement, and Principled Decision …
    Journal of Writing Analytics

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