With Apologies to Shakespeare: A Reflection on Yancey (2009)

           

        During the years I taught at the secondary level, I felt subjected to "the slings and arrows of outrageous assessment." Particularly as a teacher with a high percentage of at-risk students and students with special education IEPs, I viewed assessments designed by anyone outside my school system as, at best, inaccurate reflections and, at worst, unfair judgments. The Yancey article helps me view assessment with a lens wider than my teacher's desk, and the historical perspective she provides gives me a more positive and hopeful outlook on what is possible for assessment.
             I first find Yancey's wave concept helpful as I can hold that timeline against that of my own educational experience. I remember filling in endless bubbles as a student in the 70's and early 80's and when both I and, as Yancey says, writing assessment was "young, complex, conflicted" (132). Even then I understood that those tests were not strongly connected to the "real work" my classmates and I did the rest of the time, and I see in Yancey's description that while this was in large part so, important knowledge grew out of that first, bubble-ridden stage (133).
             The second wave is one I rode during my time as a secondary teacher; I remember endless sessions of multiple readings and holistic grading, and I remember the bitterness of finding a student into whom I had poured proverbial "blood, sweat, and tears" had written just a handful of sentences. I see now that those students likely realized the thoughts their teachers entertained: "[T]eachers saw the difference between what they taught in their classes--writing--and what was evaluated" (134). Though this realization is one Yancey attributes to the first wave of assessment, she also acknowledges waves as overlapping (134). I think part of that overlap was attitudinal. As I had experienced assessment as an "add on" when I was a student, and as a student teacher encountered nothing to counteract this experience, I likely did a poor job convincing my students of the importance of assessment. While the high school at which I most recently taught briefly joined the third wave by attempting student portfolios (138-141), the faculty quickly realized how unsustainable that practice was with a highly transient student population. Wherever assessment moves from this point, I see Yancey's assertion that all assessment "must be specific, purposeful, contextual, ethical" (146) as one that should guide all stakeholders.