THE CLAY THAT MAKES THE POT - THE LOSS OF LANGUAGE IN WRITING ASSESSMENT

This is a piece about language and how we evaluate the work of young w riters as they learn to express themselves in writing. The authors' fo cus is on current reforms in writing assessment, including the brief l ife of the California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) writing portfo lios, and how they rarely address the vibrant role of language-the wor k and play of words-in students' writing. Through audio taped intervie ws with two elementary and two middle school students and their teache rs, as well as the written artifacts in the students' portfolios, we a nalyzed the patterns of the students' writing and the comments of teac hers and pews on their work. In this article, language in writing is m etaphorically compared to ''the clay that makes the pot,'' emphasizing that young writers want to startle, want to engage readers with refre shing and surprising language-but few are provided the guidance for ho w to do it. The authors' central point is that writing revolves around criticism, but if the assessment stays on the surface and encourages word substitution over content revision, then the criticism may not be helpful in pushing the generative aspect of writing: the work of lang uage.