Green Squiggly Lines:

Writing Assessment in Computer-Mediated Composition

Still, Sirc-like Finn-maintains the authority of the teacher to evaluate student work within his or her course. By arguing for the teacher's authority to assess student work, Sirc and Finn draw a line against what many teachers perceived as the threat of machine-graded essays-the replacement of the teacher by the computer. They also stake out a territory where the teacher has unique authority-that is, the grading of student essays within a course is not the domain of administrators, it is not the domain of politicians, and it is definitely not the domain of computers. Writing evaluation is the teacher's job, and it is tied to his or her curriculum. This stance, coming from Finn during the "Why-Johnny-Can't-Write" literacy crises of the 1970s and from Sirc during the late 1980s conservative replay of that literacy crisis, positions the teacher as the best reader, responder, and evaluator for student work. It suggests that computer-evaluated essays will only increase the problems that educational researchers have noted when assessment is separated from the teacher-student interaction (e.g., Aschbacher and Herman, 1991).