Assessing Computational Texts Through Rhetorical Analysis to Center Student Identity and Voice (Poster 6)

• In Event: Computational Thinking in Humanities

Abstract

Objectives
There is growing interest in K12 interdisciplinary learning between English/Language Arts (ELA) and Computer Science (CS). Both disciplines can support equity and justice by supporting students in creating personally-meaningful texts; both disciplines also share the obligation of helping students learn empowering skills without reproducing exclusive definitions of which identities and voices are legitimate (Kafai & Proctor, 2021). This paper’s objective is to explore how ELA assessment practices focusing on identity and voice can be applied to student-authored texts in CS and interdisciplinary ELA/CS contexts.

Background
Assessment in ELA is grounded in literary theory which provides an account of textual meaning. The dominant literary theory underpinning US ELA curriculum is New Criticism (e.g., Brooks, 1947), whose central claim is that textual meaning resides in the structure of the text. New Critical analysis focuses on how the configuration of literary elements creates meaning; assessment grounded in New Criticism often focuses on the extent to which student writing has created meaning. New Criticism stands in contrast to Reader-Response Criticism (Rosenblatt, 1968), which holds that meaning is produced through each reader’s unique interaction with a text. A Reader-Response analysis of a text will focus on how texts make meanings available, and what they come to mean to particular readers in particular contexts. In the classroom, New Critical assessment might focus on getting it right, whereas Reader-Response assessment might be more concerned with making something happen for an intended audience.
CS is also deeply concerned with the ways symbolic systems become meaningful. While the bulk of this emphasis is on mathematical analysis of the formal properties of meaning (e.g. information theory), interest in how computer programs become meaningful to people, particularly within collaborative organizations, dates to Knuth’s (1984) concept of literate programming. Literate programming remains an active area of inquiry today (e.g. (Ashkenas, 2021)). This paper builds on these foundations to suggest that K12 CS might borrow assessment methods from ELA which focus less on correctness and more on the expressive potential of computational artifacts.

Methods & Data Sources
The case studies presented in this paper apply a method of rhetorical analysis developed by Proctor and Blikstein (2019) as an extension of Reader-Response theory to computational texts, specifically interactive stories.

Results
This paper presents two case studies of how student-authored computational texts might be assessed.
Scholarly significance
These case studies challenge the central value of correctness in K12 CS assessment. One might be concerned about perpetuating misconceptions or ineffective practices. However, there are many examples of informal communities of computational practice which thrive through a focus on expressiveness rather than correctness. Such communities produce distinctive forms of literacy which provide richer learning opportunities to their participants than standardized institutional models. They also tend to be keenly aware of their relationship to dominant professional practices.

Author

• Chris Proctor, University at Buffalo - SUNY
  Presenting Author