CCCC '97 Outcomes Forum: the Continuation - Pedagogy of the Oppressed Report (continued), by Keith Rhodes

"Freire: As an educator, you can only maintain a non-directive posture if you attempt a deceitful discourse; that is, a discourse from the perspective of the dominant class. Only in this deceitful discourse can an educator talk about a lack of direction. Why? I think this is because there is no real education without a directive. To the extent that all educational practice brings with it its own transcendence, it presupposes an objective to be reached. Therefore practice cannot be nondirective. There is no educational practice that does not point to an objective; this proves that the nature of educational practice has direction."

Freire and Macedo, Literacy

background for this discussion:

A loose consortium of writing program administrators has begun an ongoing dialogue on specifying outcomes for first-year college composition courses. This consortium was born on WPA-L, the electronic discussion list for writing program administrators, after Ed White made a deceptively simple point: we ought to be able to describe what it is that we think our courses do for students, however difficult it might be to quantify the results. Bill Condon consolidated the following discussion into a workshop proposal for the Conference on College Composition and Communication and recruited a cast of discussion leaders drawn from the discussion. The conference organizers transformed the proposed workshop into a forum session. At the session, participants gathered into discussion groups (somewhat defined by different interest areas and led by one or more discussion leaders) to generate and collect tentative outcomes statements or particular perspectives on the issue of outcomes statements. Plans are currently under way to continue the efforts at the 1997 WPA summer conference and at next year's CCCC. At this point, the initiative is not an official action of any established organization.

The results of the CCCC forum have been presented in two electronic media. First, a listserv discussion continues on a discussion list created by Barry Maid for the original purpose of planning the forum. Since it uses very simple software, the method for subscription to this list is very unusual. Subscribers simply send an e-mail message to the list address in which they put the word "subscribe" in the subject line and leave the body of the message blank. The address is: outcomes@ethos.rhet.ualr.edu

Further, I have posted reports from the forum discussion groups and related resources on a "text only" web site at this address:

http://www.nwmissouri.edu/~0500202/outcomes/main.html

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Next, the summary of main discussion points (identities excluded, since so few gave the express permission I requested; Irv and Bill can give their own accounts of themselves)

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• Outcomes themselves are not inherently opposed to liberatory pedagogy - though if we really had one we might not need them
• If we're going to be forced to teach to the test, we may as well write the test.
• Even if we could write "liberatory" outcomes statements, certainly not all teachers use such a method.
• But we don't have to tell them they're doing it.

• Student populations should be included in this effort if there is any hope of having them be truly liberatory.
• But many students want to be "banked" - they're into Strunk and White (referring to a theme in Richard Batteiger's presentation), and think that's what they need.
• If the outcomes were done well, that belief could become a basis for challenging and exploring the ideology of those conventions.
• Maybe that should be an outcome: "Explore the ideology of these outcomes."
• Have students explore an outcomes statement, or even the evolving draft.
• We should not see the result of a national outcomes statement as necessary, just the conversation.
• Then we should open the conversation to teachers working with students, positioning this as a political discussion as well as an educational one.

• We have to come up with outcomes that actually can be assessed; How do we know these outcomes have happened?
• Students should be able to know that they have happened, too.
• Maybe one outcome should be the ability to develop outcomes - to understand how they work and what they signify.

• One thing about this project - it's either got to result in wide agreement - on every syllabus in the country - or it's nothing.
• How will we deal with entrenched institutional politics about grading - things like "Bell Curving"?
• We need to have more creative ways of assessing - of both grading and not grading.

• What specific things are going to have to be addressed? [much ribaldry here concerning old behavioral objectives language]
• the ability to identify the determining characteristics of texts
• writing processes; the ability to see them and evaluate them, to evaluate their sequences
• the ability to describe how processes might work differently for different purposes, in different power relationships
• This would all work better if we could give a narrative explanation of the outcome we see rather than a grade
• These outcome statements should probably be highly contextualizable - institutions are different, and different writers mature and change and learn at different rates and along different paths.
• How about "the ability to mature"?
• Or "the ability to understand what Greek [i.e., Strunk and White] really means"?
• We have to be careful of the obsession with certainty that so many of our audiences bring to their assessment of writing and writing instruction.
• How about "The ability to understand that writing is a life-long process"?

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And now the written commentary given to me - edited oh so lightly, using the identities provided

Dwarka Ramphal (co-panelist)

• There should be broad guidelines for outcome-based approaches - the journey to get there is left to the teacher. I discuss with the students how to reach the goal.

• The process, the dialogue about the outcomes could only be healthy, be it on the college level, secondary ed, or in the classroom

• 80% of the students should be able to determine when their composition processes become appropriate products for the situation [a bit tongue in cheek?].

[Heading on notes: "Liberatory outcome statements vs. mechanism for assessment]

• Keep outcomes separate from mechanisms (portfolios, etc.) to find out if outcome has been realized.
• Students should be able to deconstruct an assignment to assess implied criteria

• Again, another reminder that WPA, indeed all teachers' organizations and individuals, must publicly articulate/describe what our goals are, what "outcomes" we believe are necessary and why (in a "democratic" society). *A priori*, we need to do a great deal of outreach and legwork to get students and parents involved in how education is done (the process), so the public can understand how teaching must work.

• Yes, establishing national standards would de-mystify the bases for assessment, but at the same time would further the notion hat there are objective criteria for judging language usage.

• What would our outcomes statements look like?
• Examples [working with currently popular "student as client" ideas]:
• "Explore the ideology of outcomes"
• "Develop criteria for class grades along with the teacher"
• Negotiated, appropriate outcomes given the student's starting point in the system.

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