THE CEA FORUM - Summer/Fall 2010 - A CEA Forum Roundtable - Another Fine Mess Assessment’s Gotten Us Into - Inheriting the Gooey, Slimy, Delicious Mess of Qualitative Assessment - Marjorie Stewart

Oct 15, 2026

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A CEA forum roundtable address by Marjorie Stewart recounts inheriting a qualitative assessment program for a basic writing course at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. The talk argues that writing assessment must be inherently messy because writing itself is messy, subjective, and non-numerical. Stewart contrasts qualitative assessment with rubric-based quantitative methods that create an illusion of objectivity, emphasizing dialogue among instructors, active tutoring dynamics, and institutional structures that make assessment collaborative and engaging.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Another Fine Mess: Inheriting the Gooey, Slimy, Delicious Mess of Qualitative Assessment

Starting the Qualitative Assessment Program

Messy, Cyclical Assessment and Classroom Fun

Against Illusory Mathematical Objectivity

Active Conversation Among Writers, Readers, and Tutors

Early Results

THE CEA FORUM Summer/Fall 2010 A CEA Forum Roundtable Another Fine Mess Assessment’s Gotten Us Into: Inheriting the Gooey, Slimy, Delicious Mess of Qualitative Assessment MARJORIE STEWART Art Institute of Pittsburgh In July of 2008, I became Writers’Center Coordinator and Lead Faculty in English at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. One of the emphases during the interview process was assessment. The coordinators I was following (Krystia Nora, and April Sikorski before her) had initiated a qualitative assessment of the basic writing course, English 095. It sounded great. It was exciting to come into an institution that valued what I did; that was philosophically and theoretically aligned with my beliefs. I would inherit a program I fully supported. Then I started. And I discovered that philosophy and theory are all very well, but practice is messy. But here’s the thing: assessment of writing has to be messy, because writing is messy. It’s not objective, numerical, or quantitative. From this messy, subjective process, a great truth arose (one I know my mother would disagree with, or disapprove of, or both): Messy things are really fun. Splashing in the mud, playing with your food, finger painting. Oh, I imagine you muttering: THE CEA FORUM Summer/Fall 2010 “Assessment. Messy, yes, but fun? Ha!” I’ve heard assessment called a “perpetual motion machine” and it is. It is a wheel that keeps rolling, a circular, cyclical, and sometimes circuitous process. But rather than envisioning this circle as the snake swallowing its own tail or a crushing wheel of fortune, I like to think of the recycling emblem: three arrows leading the eye around a triangle: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Unfortunately, assessment is far too often Review, Redo, Ignore. Where’s the fun in that? We all (I hope) have fun teaching. Brian Huot says,“Because assessment is the direct representation of what we value and how we assign that value, it says much about our identities as teachers, researchers, and theorists”(11) . The qualitative assessment at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh has helped us find and express those identities, and that has been valuable as well as fun. After all, fellow composition geeks, what is more fun than hanging out with our colleagues and talking, debating, arguing and even fighting about writing? The qualitative assessment gives us institutionally sanctioned time to do just that. In a world where many overworked department members never see each other, we come together several times a quarter to do this work. The faculty is extraordinarily dedicated to this project: there is no extra pay and no course reduction (although there is talk of doing so soon, as this project requires it) . For the moment, there is only the occasional pizza as a reward. This group of fabulous professionals is the one part of my inheritance for which I am most grateful. The Art Institute faculty involved in the initial round of qualitative assessment realized early on that they did not know what questions to ask; they only knew that their previous methods had not found the answers. A quantitative assessment using the ever-popular grid rubric THE CEA FORUM Summer/Fall 2010 creates the illusion of mathematical objectivity, but it is just that: an illusion. The rubric guides the discussion whether it is appropriate or not. Bob Broad writes of his experience in writing assessment: “I notice how all judgments were referred back to the scoring guide or rubric. If a criterion did not appear on the rubric, it was discounted as a basis for judging a text; if a criterion did appear on the rubric, it was privileged even if it bore little relevance to the text under scrutiny”(25). In other words, when your only tool is a hammer, every problem–or every student paper–becomes a nail. Because our faculty values process, creativity, and individual voice, we do not wish to pound our students with a hammer. No scoring rubric can reflect our hopes for our s

FAQs

Why does Stewart argue that writing assessment should be “messy”?

Writing is messy and not purely objective, numerical, or quantitative. Stewart contends assessment must reflect that reality, rather than forcing it into rigid measurement.

What does Stewart criticize about rubric-based assessment?

She argues that grids and scoring rubrics can create an illusion of mathematical objectivity, steering discussion toward criteria on the rubric even when they have little relevance to the text.

How does Stewart say qualitative assessment improves teaching and faculty collaboration?

She describes it as institutionally sanctioned time for instructors to debate and share perspectives, helping faculty recognize needed questions and reconnect with each other and the wider composition community.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by SANS