"Assessment Was the Hugest Stressor": Ethical and Response-able Relations in K–12 Literacy Classrooms — Emplacing Assessment

• In Event: Reconsidering Writing Assessment

Abstract

In a three-year collaborative partnership involving university researchers, government, and school districts, we have been studying curricular and pedagogical change in English Language Arts (ELA) by focusing on sustained professional inquiry. Quite predictably, assessment has emerged as an ethical space of pedagogical, epistemological, and ontological tension and concern. Drawing on agential ontologies and Indigenous philosophies in education, in dialogue with data collected through focus groups, interviews, and online surveys, we propose a conceptual framework for emplacing assessment that assumes a relational ontology. Understanding language and literacy practices as produced in and through dynamic social-material-semiotic environments, we will explore what emplacing assessment might look like, opening up a dialogue for creating more ethical and response-able relationships in assessment, teaching, and learning.

Authors

• Michelle A. Honeyford, University of Manitoba

• Burcu Yaman Ntelioglou, Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada