Expanding The Dialogue on Culture

    Arnetha F. Ball conducted a study on how composition assessment practices impact and are impacted by power culture. She presents an argument for an assessment reformation that includes input from teachers from diverse backgrounds, particularly when it comes to assessing culturally and linguistically diverse students. Her research is based off of six such students from lower- and working-class backgrounds. Three of the students were African American who spoke African American vernacular English (AAVE) and mainstream American English. Two students were U.S. born Hispanic-American and were fluent in both Spanish and English, and the sixth student was European-American student who spoke only mainstream American English.
    The teachers Ball enlisted to partake in the research consisted of four European American teachers and four African American teachers. They were provided with training on a rubric that had a 6-point holistic rating and 4-point rating each on organization, coherence and mechanics. Through their grading of the students’ writings, Ball found both sets of teachers consistently scored the texts written by the European American student with the highest points, the African American students’ texts moderate points, and the Hispanic American students’ texts with the lowest points, despite not having shared student demographics with the teachers in advance.
    The African-American teachers on average gave lower scores to all students than the European American teachers did. On the six-point scale, European-American teachers scoring of the European-American student’s work ranged from 3.56-5.06, the African American students’ texts ranged 3.19 to 4.5, while the African-American teachers ranked the European American student’s texts 2.19-3.31 and the African-American students’ texts 2.5-3.69.
    Ball states that the higher standards African-American teachers hold for the students stems from a cultural belief. “In the African-American culture, it is often felt that teachers who have low expectations for their students are denying them opportunities to learn how to participate and survive in the real world” (183). While I do not think that belief is unique to African-American teachers, Ball’s statement earlier statement about how the power culture influences writing assessment rings true. As one teacher said, although we “do our students a disservice if we don’t in some way assess for accuracy,” it is equally important that we assess the students’ works for content (184). Another teacher emphasized the need to change teachers’ “expectations of the students by working closer with students of color and being sensitive to their needs as a learner; not sensitive to them being a person of color” (186).
    Ultimately, Ball’s research suggests that a change in composition assessments and assessment dialogue is needed, but a simplification of those assessments is not what is needed. Common amongst all four African-American teachers was a concern about doing their students a “disservice” by assessing their writing too gently. Instead, recognition that African-American students’ ideas are complex is a requirement, and their ideas should not be penalized because they need assistance working out the mechanics of writing. As one teacher wrote, “Written language is often an inadequate vehicle to express all the nuances of what African-American students have to say. It’s like jazz music. Jazz musicians will tell you that the European system of music notation cannot capture the essence of what, for example, Charlie Parker played on his saxophone” (189). The real question is, the teacher continues, “what should be judged first?”