John Paul Tassoni

Rhetoric and the writer's profile: Problematizing directed self-placement

Abstract Open enrollment and walk-in advising at two-year colleges make placement assessment a continual, year-round process, effectively prohibiting the use of placement processes like entrance portfolios. On the grounds of expediency, many two-year institutions have turned to computerized editing tests such as COMPASS for placing entering students into writing courses, even though such tests do not directly measure writing. Forgoing placement assessment entirely through directed student self-placement, such as that described by Royer and Gilles, has also become an attractive alternative for some institutions. Beginning with the premise that assessment is a rhetorical act, the authors describe their reasons for resisting computer editing tests and suggest possible problems with using only directed student self-placement in open access institutions. They then describe a placement process, the Writers Profile, which they developed. A sample student profile is presented to illustrate the interaction and negotiation among writing teachers as they read profiles and reach an agreement about their placement recommendation. The authors argue that the form of assessment chosen is important because as a rhetorical act assessment affects curriculum, pedagogy, faculty development, and even the surrounding communitys expectations and perceptions of college writing.

The Student Literary Magazine on a Two-Year Campus: Where Politics of Place Meet Politics of Literary Representation

I like to see something from every sector, but I don’t want to publish crap. Perhaps the poem [we just considered for publication] would have been enjoyed more by a nontraditional student; there weren’t really any at the [editorial] meeting. I think equal representation may play a strong role in the respect of who we’re trying to attract to the magazine, the students of a two-year campus. Since we naturally have a more diverse student body [than the main campus does], it stands that our published material (as well as our judges) should be similar [to our student body]. — Britton Stockstill, 2003 – 4 editor of Illuminati, Miami University – Middletown’s literary magazine