College Composition and Communication Jun 2013

Local Assessment: Using Genre Analysis to Validate Directed Self-Placement

Anne Ruggles Gere English and Foreign Languages University ; Laura Aull Wake Forest University ; Moisés Damián Perales Escudero University of Quintana Roo ; Zak Lancaster Wake Forest University ; Elizabeth Vander Lei Calvin University

Abstract

Grounded in the principle that writing assessment should be locally developed and controlled, this article describes a study that contextualizes and validates the decisions that students make in the modified Directed Self-Placement (DSP) process used at the University of Michigan. The authors present results of a detailed text analysis of students’ DSP essays, showing key differences between the writing of students who self-selected into a mainstream first-year writing course and that of students who self selected into a preparatory course. Using both rhetorical move analysis and corpus-based text analysis, the examination provides information that can, in addition to validating student decisions, equip students with a rhetorically reflexive awareness of genre and offer an alternative to externally imposed writing assessment.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2013-06-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc201323661
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
Topics
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Citation context

Cited by in this index (17)

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  3. Chang (2023)
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  4. Black (2022)
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  5. Tinkle et al. (2022)
    (In)Equities in directed self-placement
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  3. Aull et al. (2020)
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  4. Householder et al. (2020)
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  5. Moos et al. (2019)
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  6. Gere (2019)
    Knowledge Making and Writing Analytics: MLA Special Session
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  7. Jin (2018)
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  8. Fife (2018)
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  9. Ferris et al. (2017)
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  10. Aull (2017)
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  11. Aull et al. (2014)
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  12. Toth et al. (2014)
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