portfolios and curriculum reform: patterns in practice

ASSESSING WRITING, 1 (2), 175206, (1994)

Portfolios and Curriculum Reform: Patterns in Practice

Sandra Murphy University of California, DavL

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. “Cheshire Puss,” said Alice, ‘rwould you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,“said the Cat. ‘I don’t much care where”said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk,“said the Cat.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

The Lewis Carroll quotation reveals an important truth. Our goals determine the direction we take, or whether we take one at all. If we care where we are going with portfolios, as with other educational innovations, we need to clarify the most desirable direction to take. To begin, we need to clarify what we mean by portfolios. The phrase “portfolio practice” is used liberally, as if everyone shared the same assumptions about what it means, one of them being that “doing” portfolios is something very different from what people had been doing before. Yet in actuality, when portfolio programs are initiated, they may reflect little substantive change from previous practice. Like chameleons, portfolios often seem to take on the characteristics of their surroundings, in this case, existing curricula.

In fact, portfolios contain, and are themselves, artifacts of curricula in the sense that they contain objects made by human beings which are characteristic of a particular classroom culture. My use of the word curriculum in this context refers not only to what is taught by the teacher-the content and the way it is communicated-but also to the outcomes for which students are held accountable, the nature of their experiences in the

Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Sandra Murphy, 36 Mirko Lane, Walnut Creek, CA 94396.

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classroom, and the social roles of persons within the classroom, school, and community who are participating in some way in the ongoing education and evaluation of the students. As artifacts, portfolios provide traces of this culture, fragments of evidence from which it is possible to make inferences about the beliefs and assumptions of individuals engaged in the various forms of educational practice.

Because portfolios reflect curricula, and the web of beliefs and assumptions which undergird curricula, portfolio programs are less similar than one might expect. My first purpose in this article is to provide a picture of the existing diversity in approaches to portfolios. I also examine how different curriculum perspectives are reflected in the designs of portfolio programs, how they reveal “patterns in practice” in the teaching of writing and how they reveal fundamental beliefs about teaching and learning. To accomplish this, I analyze the designs of a selection of portfolio programs- a “portfolio of portfolios.” In this section of the essay, my objective is to characterize the interpretive frameworks which underlie approaches to the teaching of writing as they are revealed in the designs of portfolio programs. I do not imply a one-to-one correspondence between particular curriculum perspectives and particular portfolio models. Rather, I suggest that certain orientations toward curriculum reveal themselves in portfolio designs. Because portfolios reflect curricula, they reveal philosophical assumptions and beliefs about teaching and learning. In actual classrooms, of course, most curricula reflect a blend of beliefs about theories of learning and about the purposes and goals of education. Pure examples of curricular philosophy are hard to come by in practice. Nevertheless, because they reflect practice, portfolio programs reflect identifiable curriculum orientations, clusters of ideas about teaching and learning and the nature of writing as a theoretical construct which complement each other.

Examining different curricular orientations, and the assumptions and beliefs which underlie them, will, I believe, better equip those of us who are engaged in portfolio practice to make reasoned decisions about our practice and to look beyond superficial alterations toward more fundamental and substantive curriculum change. Like Louise Wetherbee Phelps (1989), I believe that through introspection and analysis we are able to make conscious and accessible those sets of beliefs and values which constitute our “theories” about our practice. Making our theories conscious allows us to analyze our beliefs in relation to our practice. It is this kind of reflection which can lead us to make substantive curricular change. Equally important, it helps us avoid adopting approaches to assessment which may con- tradict the goals we want to accomplish.

Reflective analysis of the curricular philosophies and Iearning theories underlying different approaches to assessment will aid both teachers and policy-makers to design educational systems which are coherent. Curricu-

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lum and assessment exist in a reciprocal relationship, with each influencing the other. Being alert to the potential impact on curriculum and instructional practice in the portfolio systems we design is ever more important in this age of high-stakes testing. Policy-makers, for example, are becoming increasingly aware of the power of assessment to influence curriculum; high stakes increase this power (Madaus, 1988). George Madaus describes, for example, several ways in which assessments influence curriculum when educators believe that the results of an examination are important:

. Teachers pay particular attention to the form of questions on a high- stakes test.. .and adjust their attention accordingly.

. If important decisions are presumed to be related to test results, then teachers will teach to the test.

. In every setting where a high-stakes test operates, a tradition of past exams develops, which eventually de facto defines the curriculum.

Research and scholarship has documented the powerful, and often delete- rious, effects of large-scale tests on teaching and curriculum (e.g., see Corbett & Wilson, 1991; Dorr-Bremme & Herman, 1986; Haertel & Calfee, 1982; LeMahieu, 1984; Loofbourrow, 1994; Madaus, 1988; Mathison, 1989; Murnane, 1987; Polemini, 1977; Resnick, 1980; Smith, 1991; Stake, Bet- tridge, Metzer & Switzer, 1987). This research should remind us that the way we frame portfolios has the same potential to exert a powerful impact on the curriculum and the culture of schools as do other kinds of assessment. Our choices, then, about the features of portfolio programs we want to adopt are crucially important, because they represent our beliefs about teaching and learning-our perspectives on curriculum.

Certain theoretical perspectives on curriculum are so fundamentally different that they will not easily coexist. These differences fuel debates about assessment. Some kinds of assessment, for example, treat writing as a single construct which permits generalization about writing ability from one sample. In curriculum, the analogous notion is the five paragraph theme. This view is inherently at odds with a conception of writing as a multidimensional construct or the idea that writing ability is a capacity which varies situationally, according to the type of writing, the audience or purpose of the writing, the knowledge of the writer about the subject and the writer’s interest in it, as well as factors which influence conditions for writing, including time and collaboration. The influence of this multidimensional view of writing is evident in classrooms and in assessment programs where students write for multiple purposes and audiences. Other approaches to assessment, in contrast, treat writing as a construct which can be decomposed into subskills, each of which can be taught explicitly and in isolation from a particular communicative context. In classrooms, this view

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translates into worksheets and drills on grammar. It is a view inherently at odds with the idea that writing is social in character, shaped both by the cultural background and prior knowledge of the writer and by the context of the writing.

Differences in curricular perspectives also fuel debates about defining features of portfolios-about what they are and what they are not-and about the goals they are supposed to accomplish. Many practitioners, for example, see student ownership as a defining element of portfolio design and practice, a view which has particular curricular implications and which may conflict with the view that portfolio contents must be standardized to ensure transmission of certain kinds of knowledge within a traditional curriculum or to obtain “reliable” scores for assessment purposes. Bringing forward and acknowledging these different views will help to remind us about the features of portfolio practice we find most valuable and to design portfolio programs which accurately represent what we believe and value about the teaching and learning of writing.

Deciding to engage in “portfolio practice,” in and of itself, is not sufficient to create curricular change, if that practice simply means more of the same, but put in a folder (Roemer, Schultz, & Durst, 1991). Establishing a portfolio culture may require teachers to make substantial changes in their instructional practices, My second purpose, therefore, is to examine the potential of portfolios as a catalyst for curricular reform. To this end I explore how a central issue in portfolio practice-the issue of choice-is addressed in portfolio programs with somewhat different underlying curricular philosophies. Within some portfolio programs student choice and authority are constrained, even nonexistent. In others, choice is encouraged, but framed by somewhat different formulations of the goals of learning, formulations which, in turn, mirror particular curricular orientations. Reflecting on the educational goals we want portfolios to accomplish will encourage a broadening of the discourse in the development stages of portfolio projects so that the implicit ideologies and theories underlying different portfolio designs will be more apparent to participants. Making these ideologies and theories explicit will, I believe, make possible the development of more coherent educational systems in which forms of assessment are intentionally designed to complement, not subvert, curricular aims. As the Cheshire Cat might say, figuring out “where we want to get to,” is the first step in devising a route for getting there. It won’t matter “which way we walk,” if we don’t know where we want to go.

Moving from an analysis which looks at the diversity of portfolio programs in practice, and the ways in which they reveal underlying beliefs about theories of learning and the purposes of education, in the second section of this essay I turn to an examination of the evolution of one portfolio program. I describe the ways teachers in this program reframed


their portfolio practice over time to address the issue of choice and to reflect their changing views of writing instruction. The evolution of this program shows that the relationship between curriculum and assessment is not a simple one-way relationship, in either direction. Assessment does not simply drive cu~iculum; nor does curriculum simply drive assessment. In this program, curriculum and assessment existed in a reciprocal relationship, a dialectic, in which each informed and influenced the other as it evolved; that is, when the teachers designed the assessment, they did not simply create a portfolio in the image of their curriculum and leave it in place. Ideas from what they learned from the assessment each year influenced the way they thought about their curriculum and led to curricular change. In turn, discussion and reflection about their goals for their students, the content of their curriculum, and their teaching practices led them to reshape the design of their portfolio program.

What the teachers created at this school was an assessment in the service of learning-their own as well as their students’. This kind of flexible, evolving and internally developed model differs in significant ways from most external attempts to use assessment as an instrument of educational reform. In the past, attempts to use large-scale assessment to reform curriculum have undermined the professionalization of teaching. As Smith (1991) says of the results of her study of the effects of external testing programs on teachers:

Far from the reflective practitioner or the empowered teacher, those opti- mistic images of the 1980’s, the image we project of teachers in the world after testing reform is that of interchangeable technicians receiving the standard curricuhtm from above, transmitting it as given (the presentation manual never leaving the crook of their arms), and correcting the multiple- choice responses of their pupils (p. 11).

In contrast, the process adopted by the teachers at the school described in this essay provides a model for a more sophisticated relationship between assessment and curriculum, one which encourages professional growth.

“The way I do portfolios.. .” When teachers say things like “The way I do portfolios,” they are actually making statements about what they think should be taught and what they value as appropriate educational goals, activities, and purposes. In short, they are making statements about curricular values. Comments like these also serve as reminders that individuals actually go about “doing” portfo- Iios in diverse ways and for many different reasons. Purposes for portfolios, for example, range from tracking student development over time, showcas- ing student response to a range of assignments, evaluating student work

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across the cu~culum, motiv~~ng students, promoting learning through reflection and self-assessment, and evaluating students’ thinking and writing processes, to program implementation, program assessment, evaluating curriculum, or establishing exit requirements. The possibilities are multiple.

Teachers shape portfolios according to the purpose they want them to serve. In turn, purposes for using portfolios impose certain constraints on the way they can be shaped. If the purpose of the portfolio, for example, is to document growth over time, then some system for presenting things chronologically is in order, such as, several samples collected at regular intervals, initial drafts compared with revisions made later in the year, a written reflection by the student on his or her progress, and so on. If the purpose is to focus students’ attention on in-depth explorations and areas of concentration, contents might include a series of pieces around a theme, a genre, a particular purpose or audience, or documentation of the evolution of an extended project. Such documentation might also serve the purpose of demonstrating facility with more than one kind of language process (e.g., reading, oral language, writing, speaking), since extended projects typically include a variety of activities incorporating and integrat- ing the different language modes. In contrast, showcase portfoiios might include singular kinds of work to demonstrate mastery or competence in particular areas of concern in the curriculum (e.g., types of writing to show satisfactory performance in each type). Other kinds of portfolios such as “process-folios,” include pieces of work at various stages of completion (and re~ement) and evidence of the processes used in their creation (e.g., note cards, outlines, lists of references, early drafts, final drafts, written reflection on the process). Portfolios such as these invite what Louise Wetherbee Phelps (1989) calls a “formative attitude” on the part of the teacher, an attitude which invites the teacher to think of the student’s text as a piece “in the process of evolution” (p. 51). Process-folios give the teacher traces of the evolution of pieces of writing.

Clearly, teachers use portfolios for a variety of purposes. On one dimension, then, portfolios vary in design because they reflect the purposes they are designed to serve. In this respect, we could think of portfolios as similar to any other useful educational tool that can be adapted to fit particular needs. Books can be written about particular subjects, for example, or tests designed in particular ways to assess particular objectives. It is theoretically possible to design portfolios to meet any number of purposes. At another level, however, portfolios designs reflect the curriculum from which they are derived. Thus, they vary in the ways they represent content and in the ideas they promote about the purposes for education and in the best ways to go about meeting those purposes. Contrasting, and sometimes conflicting, theoretical perspectives on the purposes and content of curricula provide the fuel for debates about portfolio practice. One way to see these


conflicting perspectives is to look at the ways particular programs have framed answers to the questions students and teachers often ask about portfolios, questions which on the surface may seem purely pragmatic, but which in actuality have important theoretical implications. These theory- in-practice questions, “What goes in the portfolios?” and “How are you going to evaluate them. 7” reveal beliefs about the nature of writing as a theoretical construct, about how children learn to write, and about how teachers should go about teaching them.

A Behaviorist Portfolio? Theoretical perspectives on curriculum, and on the teaching and learning of writing in particular, are reflected in the design of portfolios. Imagine, for example, what a writing portfolio might contain if it were designed by a behaviorist. A behavioral perspective, as described in George Posner’s book, Analyzing the Curriculum, casts the content of the curriculum as “a set of skills described by statements specifying observable and measurable behaviors, termed ‘behavioral’ or ‘performance’ objectives” (Posner, 1992, p. 96). Aspects of content, such as facts and concepts, are either translated into behaviors or are considered only as vehicles for teaching and learning the behaviors. In this kind of portfolio, the answer to the students’ question about what goes in the portfolio would be evidence of mastery of discrete skills-worksheets.

It’s probably fair to say that for those of us who are engaged in portfolio practice, who have different notions about the defining features of that practice, the phrase “behaviorist portfolio” is an oxymoron, Nevertheless, this kind of portfolio actually exists. Some publishers, for example, have applied the label “portfolio” to its antithesis-a collection of worksheets. Spectrum Educational Media Inc. advertises a “grammar portfolio” with the following description:

Greatly extends the number of exercises available to supplement the traditional grammar book. Asks students to identify sentence parts, fill in the blanks, distinguish between grammatical elements, and determine how words, phrases, and clauses are used.. . . Fifty reproducible worksheets, answer key. Grades 7-12.

An obvious departure from the basic idea that portfolios are collections of writing or other student work, this “portfolio” reduces writing to a collection of skills or competencies which can be observed and measured, result- ing in a curriculum consisting of exercises to develop these competencies. A behaviorist “portfolio” documents a classroom culture in which teachers attempt to influence the behavior of students by providing stimuli and practice (worksheets) and various kinds of immediate reinforcement

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(grades or praise for appropriate responses). Writing is conceptualized as a collection of skills that can be taught explicitly, one at a time, using tasks with graduated levels of difficulty and that can be measured as particular, observable “behaviors.” Certainly, this kind of “portfolio” reflects a very different theoretical conception of writing than one which contains samples of student work. However, even collections of real writing vary in substantial ways and reflect very different curricular perspectives.

A Portfolio Framework Based on Rhetorical Theory Consider another, somewhat different, way to answer the students’ and teachers’ question about content, an answer which reveals a different curricular perspective, one which is based in fundamental ideas of the discipline of English language arts. In Ann Roussea’s class, in high school, students write an in-class response to a prompt and provide their best examples of expressive, essay, and poetic writing to put in their portfolios (in press). In specifying these contents for the portfolios, Roussea is draw- ing upon the work of James Britton, one of the major, latter-day discourse theorists in the teaching and learning of writing. Britton and his associates at the University of London developed a multidimensional model of discourse derived from research conducted in the S-year Schools Council Project (1966-1971) to study the written language of 11-18 year olds. On one plane their model addresses dimensions of audience, moving from the self, to the teacher, to an unknown audience. On another plane their model classifies writing according to the predominant&n&on it performs. One of the main categories in the Britton, Burgess, Martin, McLeod, and Rosen (1975, p. 83) scheme of the functions of written utterances is the transac- lional (e.g., essays, writing to inform, “language to get things done, i.e., it is concerned with an end outside itself” (p. 88). A second is “expressive,” or “language close to the self, revealing the speaker, verbalizing his conscious- ness, displaying his close relationship with the reader” (p. 88). A third is “poetic,” defined as “a verbal construct, patterned verbalization of the writer’s feeling and ideas.. . not restricted to poems but.. .includ[ing] such writings as a short story, a play, a shaped autobiographical episode” (p. 90). As Figure 1 illustrates, Britton et al. (1975) see the expressive form of writing as “a kind of matrix from which different forms of mature writing are developed” (p. 83).

Although this British research team departed from earlier traditional rhetorical categories, their framework now has wide acceptance among teachers of writing as a way to categorize discourse and as a structure for teaching writing.Thus, Roussea’s portfolio content framework, with its categories of essay,expressive and poetic writing,reflects one formulation of the structure of the discipline of English language arts. Because Roussea’s portfolio content framework requires students to select representative pieces

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Portfolios and Curriculum Reform

TRANSACTION - EXPRESSIVE - POETIC

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for a range of kinds of writing, it ensures coverage; there is little chance that any theoretical function (transactional, expressive,poetic) will be neglected.

A Cognitive Framework for Portfolios

Like frameworks for content, frameworks for evaluation reveal curricular perspectives. For example, the influence of a “cognitive” perspective is revealed in the components of the evaluation framework in Figure 2. Part of a draft framework developed by one of the districts participating in the Assessment Research and Development Project at the University of Cali- fornia at Davis, this component of the framework focuses on the assessment of processes instead of products.

The focus on processes here clearly reflects the influence of the cognitive perspective. In a cognitively oriented curriculum, the spotlight is on the acquisition of internal mental structures and processes that are necessary for successful performance and are broadly enabling for learning (Resnick & Klopfer, 1989). The framework presented in Figure 2, with its lists of key processes (communication, problem solving, revision, reflection, self-evaluation, and collaboration) captures this emphasis of the cognitive perspective on thinking processes. It also reflects the idea that learners consfrucf meaning. Furthermore, the developmental pattern of its performance levels (novice, apprentice, proficient, experienced) reflect another key concept of this theoretical perspective: the idea of learning as a cognitive apprenticeship. Resnick and Klopfer (1989), using writing as an example, explain the implications of a cognitive apprenticeship model for the curriculum and for the experiences students will encounter in school:

cognitive apprenticeship involves contextualized practice of tasks, not exercises on component skills that have been lifted out of the contexts in which they are to be used. In traditional apprenticeships novices produce less complex objects than they will when they are more skilled, but they spend

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very little time practicing discrete skills. In school, cognitive apprentices might work more on writing shorter essays or reading shorter texts than they will later, but they would not spend much time on English usage drills or finding synonyms and antonyms. Similarly, they would not do exercises on separating facts from opinions, but they would take on tasks of analyzing arg~ents on particular topics or pa~i~pating in debates, both of which might engage them in a contextualized version of figuring out reliable information in a communication. (p. 10)

Based on a cognitive apprenticeship model, this framework also reflects a theoretical concern with the role that social communities play in shap- ing thinking. One of the “key processes” in this framework, cdfaboration,

highlights the role that collaborative work can play in scaffolding learning and performance. In this respect, this framework also reflects an “experiential” perspective. According to Hamilton (1980), among other things, experiential education aims to “increase the competence of youth in such areas as...coping with new ideas, conflicting opinions, and people who are different,” (p. 191). Educational aims such as these are at the heart of effective collaboration, and they are anchored in Dewey’s (1916) emphasis on the “social dimensions of knowledge” (Dewey, 1916; cited in Posner, 1992, p. 177). In Dewey’s view, subjects or activities chosen for individual students should enhance their social development, as well as their personal and intellectual development. In addition to a strictly cognitive perspective, then, the criteria for developing and evaluating portfolios in this particular framework reflect an “experiential” curricular perspective.

To summarize, each of the portfolio programs described previously reflects a parti~uIar curricular perspective. As a result, each reflects a somewhat different answer to what Posner (1992, p. 93) calls a fundamental curriculum question: “What should be the purposes and content of education?” In the behavioral perspective, the focus is on the mastery of discrete and measurable behaviors and skills. Development of curriculum is sys- tematic: behaviors are analyzed to identify prerequisite skills, students are provided opportunities to practice each skill with feedback until it is mas- tered, and skills are systematically assessed. From a “structure of the disci- plines” perspective, as revealed, for example in Britton’s scheme for categorizing discourse, the focus is on subject matter, the way scholars and practitioners in the discipline understand its structure, its predominant modes of inquiry and its fundamental concepts (Bruner, 1971; Posner, 1992). From the cognitive perspective, the focus is on concept learning and thinking processes. Students engage in purposeful activities requiring critical thinking skills, problem solving, decision making and judgments. They construct knowledge based on what they already know. From an experien-

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tial perspective, the focus is on the intellectual and social development of the individual. Schooling is related to the students’ experience.

Examining curricular perspectives allows those of us who are engaged in portfolio practice to make more thoughtful decisions about the potential impact of particular portfolio designs. This kind of reflection helps us know, as Alice’s Cheshire Cat might say, “where we want to get to.” As I’ve shown above, content and evaluation frameworks for portfolios embody curriculum philosophy; that is, they suggest different priorities and beliefs about how learning best takes place as well as different educational aims. Not all curricular approaches are compatible with one another. Behaviorist approaches, for example, which emphasize practice of decontextualized skills, do not provide opportunities for students to engage in collaborative work or complex projects. Nor do such approaches encourage students to learn to regulate their learning activity or help them take control of their learning environment (Resnick & Klopfer, 1989). Because curricular approaches may inhibit or encourage particular outcomes for students, decisions about the design of portfolio programs should not be made casually. Such decisions beg for thoughtful analysis of the curricular perspectives underlying the program. Certain curricular perspectives, for example, are inherently at odds with each other, especially around the issue of student choice, an issue that is central to the definition of portfolio practice.

The Issue of Choice and the Development of Agency For many involved in portfolio practice, developing student authority and ownership is an important priority in portfolio design. Recognizing the opportunities for learning portfolios can provide, various groups and individuals involved in the development of portfolio programs argue that portfolios should emphasize choice and student ownership to enhance the opportunities for learning in the experience of putting the portfolio together. In the early 199Os, for example, Roberta Camp described aspects of portfclios which teachers consider essential:

. multiple samples of writing, preferably collected over a sustained period of time;

l evidence of the processes and strategies that students use in creating at least some of those pieces of writing;

. evidence of the extent to which students are aware of the processes and strategies they use in writing and of their development as writers. (Camp, 1990, p. 10)

Of particular interest is the emphasis on the students’ awareness of their owtl processes and strategies for writing and their own ability to articulate their development.


A similar set of guidelines was later constructed by Donald Daiker and his colleagues at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, for advanced place- ment portfolios. Daiker and his colleagues find particular value in the reflective pieces in portfolios because reflection helps students assume control. Their guidelines focus on student reflection and revision in the process of putting together the portfolio:

l Include multiple samples of writing from a number of occasions; l Require a variety of kinds or genres of writing; l Provide opportunities for revision.. . l Ask students for their reflections-on their portfolio, on their writing

process or history, or on themselves as writers; l Offer important choices to the writer. (Daiker, Black, Sommers, & Sty-

gall, in press, p. 1)

Similarly, several of the guidelines proposed by I?. Leon Paulson and his colleagues (E L. Paulson, P Paulson, & Meyers, 1991) highlight the importance of the students’ role in generating the contents of the portfolio and in deciding how their work will be represented to external audiences. Accord- ing to Paulson et al., students should have the opportunity to shape the information about themselves that the portfolios will convey. Ownership, in part, is the right to say what won’t be included in the portfolio:

. Portfolios should provide opportunity for students to engage in self-reflection.

. Students should be involved in selecting the pieces included in the portfolio.

. The portfolio should convey a sense of the student’s activities and intentions in generating it.

. The final portfolio should contain only material that the student is willing to make public. (Paulson et al., 1991, p. 61)

All of this work highlights the importance of student ownership and the interchange that is possible in classrooms where assessment is integrated with instruction. In fact, much of the literature on portfolios suggests that portfolios should provide opportunities for students to exercise judgment about their own work, monitor their own progress, set goals for themselves, and present themselves and their work to others (see also Camp, 1990, 1992; Murphy & Smith, 1990, 1991, 1992; Rief, 1990; Tierney, Carter, & Desai, 1991; Wolf, 1989; Yancey, 1992).

Yet approaches to dealing with the issue of student authority can differ in significant ways in portfolio design. In fact, some “portfolio” programs allow no choice, about either the topics for writing or about which pieces to

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include in the portfolio. For example, the “Integrated Assessment System” offered by the Psychological Corporation is a package of materials designed for elementary schools. The brochure advertising this portfolio rec- ommends using the “Reading/Writing activities” in the performance assessment component of the system as a “core ~mponent” of the Lun- guage Arts portfolio (1990, p. 3). The “Rea~n~~ting activities” come with “handy blackline masters.. .so that teachers may make clean copies of directions and writing templates for each student” (p. 7). Teachers are also offered a videotape which “demonstrates how to administer the Read- ing/Writing prompts.. .” (p. 15). Although activities “may be administered ‘out-of-level; ” model papers for scoring are based on the designated grade levelThus, the picture painted is of a classroom where students in the same “grade levels” read the same passages, respond to identical prompts for writing, and perform under identical conditions.

An assessment system such as this might work well for a curriculum aimed at transmission of what educators believe to be the most important, established, and widely accepted facts, concepts, or skills. The Language Arts Portfolio described here would do little, however, to move students beyond mere compliance toward the development of “agency,” the “personal style, assurance, and self-control that allow [the individual] to act in both socially acceptable and personally meaningful ways” (Sizer, 1973, cited in Posner, 1992, p. 95). Development of agency, a fundamental princi- ple of an experiential perspective, requires giving students a measure of control over their environment and education by yielding a degree of decision-making responsibility and power (Posner, 1992). To develop agency, students need to make choices. Portfolios can offer students this opportunity, but when structures and processes are standardized, there is little room for choice.

The publisher’s portfolio program which prescribes certain topics for writing is analogous to the classroom where writing is taught only by “assignment,” and where the magic “fix” to the students’ problem of having nothing to say is thought to be the perfect, “entire-class-stimu- lating assignment.” This kind of classroom has been challenged by writing teachers who want their students to develop independence and to speak in their own voices. It is the product, some say, of an overdependence on assignment-giving. Donald Murray, for example, questions whether the practice of giving an assignment might ultimately inhibit the student from “learning how to think and how to find his own subject” (Murray, 1982, p. 129). Th e assignment, whether good or bad, can hinder the development of agency:

The assignment means to help, but it hinders. We laugh at the mother who continues to dress her children long after they could do the job themselves,

PorifoJiis and Curriculum Reform 189

for we know she wants to keep her children babies. The assignment-giving teacher, who is also wrapped in virtue, does the same thing. (Murray, 1982, p. 129)

Murray isn’t advocating, of course, that teachers abrogate their responsibility for teaching. Rather, he is challenging them to assume an even more demanding teaching role, one which leads the student toward responsibility for invention, not mere compliance. Murray (1982) challenges writing teachers to “create an academic climate which encourages, not discourages, each student’s individual search for his own subjects” (pp. 130-131). The student who says, “Just tell me what to do,” when asked to write or to put together a portfolio, echoes the dilemma of all students who have not had opportunities to practice generating their own ideas, to exercise authority, or to practice making choices, Students who have not had opportunities to practice making decisions about topics for writing may find it difficult, when given the opportunity, to find their own subjects. Similarly, students who have not been asked to make choices for their own portfolios may find it difficult to make informed judgments about the quality of particular pieces of their work in relation to criteria and standards.

Most of us grew up with an assignment-driven curriculum. Other people, not students, designed the tasks, in the classroom as well as in halls where large-scale, high stakes tests took place. Classroom tests usually happened on Fridays. On that day, when we were students, most of us went to school to fill in and match and check. We were steeped in the paraphernalia and ritual of tests; number two pencils, answer keys, bell curves, points, make- ups, posted results. Once in a while we wrote essay exams. But even these were shot-gun affairs, timed precisely to the number of minutes in the class period, prepared by the teachers, shrouded in secrecy and weighted with suspense. Teachers wrote the topic on test papers, or on the board before class with the door closed. When we came into class and sat down, ready at the mark with our pens and pencils hovering over blank paper, the teachers would reveal the topic, and the race would start, to end-whether we were ready or not-when the bell rang for the next class.

In this scenario, there is little room for students to develop independence, responsibility, or agency. In all fairness to our teachers, however, they were only following the lead of more large-scale enterprises in the strategies they employed for assessment. The traditional testing movement, as Eisner points out, has had no room for an active role for students.

The testing movement that has grown out of the field of educational psychol- ogy depends on assumptions that required a uniform set of test items and a uniform set of methods of test administration to measure educational achievement...under such assumptions, little or no role can be given to the pupil for participating in the creation of his or her educational program

190 S. Murphy

because the provision of such opportunities would make the system difficult to control, hard for educators to manage, and complex to evaluate. It would be like giving workers on an automobiIe assembly line the option of making choices about the upholstery or paint to be used on the cars that come along; such options would, in a technological view, create chaos. The result of such assumptions in educational practice is to regard the pupil as an essentially passive material to be molded by the impact of the treatment. (Eisner, 1985, p. 19-20)

Clearly, the assignment-driver curriculum reflects the influence of the traditional testing movement and vice versa. Both call for uniform treatment. Both cast the student in a passive role.

For many of us, allowing students to make choices about how they are going to be assessed and on what may seem a radical approach to assessment. Yet increasingly, and in the literature on portfolios in particular, there are calls for student participation and voice in the assessment process. Tierney et al., for example, suggest that portfolios lose their effectiveness if the student does not feel ownership, Many teachers, along with several researchers who hold similar views, believe that students should themselves be involved in establishing guidelines for their portfolios (Rief, 1990; Paul- son et al., 1991; Tierney et al., 1991). Even when their ultimate purpose is accountability to outside agencies, the argument goes, portfolios should not be mere repositories of work saved for others to evaluate; they should be process portfolios, easily accessible to students and tools for learning (D’Aoust, 1992; Jongsma, 1989;Tierney et al., 1991;Valencia, 1990).

Portfolio assessments which give students greater authority and responsibility for demonstrating their learning and accomplishments provide an assessment model which is compatible with a constructivist perspective, a perspective which has had little representation in the world of assessment and evaluation (for one exception, see the work of Egon Guba and Yvonna Lincoln, 1989). From a constructivist perspective, knowledge is not viewed as something to be transmitted. Rather, within a constru~tivist framework, students are seen as active collaborators in the building of knowledge. Learning takes place through interaction, existing in the transaction between student and student, student and text, student and teacher. Viewed from a constructivist perspective, then, assessment procedures are inevita- bly a part of the dialectic of teaching and learning, part of the process which defines what knowledge is, what is learned, and how students learn. Assessments which reflect this perspective provide a means for engaging students in self-reflection and for acknowledging their role as collaborators in the learning process. In sum, a constructivist perspective acknow- ledges the reciprocity and interdependency of assessment and curriculum.

When students are allowed to make their own selections, whether in relation to standards, other externally defined criteria, or their own goals


for writing, they are encouraged to engage in the self-reflective process of reviewing and evaluating their writing and themselves as writers. Teachers can promote reflection in any number of ways, for example, with reflective questions (Camp, 1990), with a regular audit (Kirby & Kuykendall, 1991) with requests for documentation in the form of reflective letters, after- words and forewords (Murphy & Smith, 1991). When students are encouraged to make choices and to reflect on those choices, they are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning. But when students are denied the chance to make their own portfolio selections, they have less opportunity to learn from the assessment process and little incentive to develop agency.

It makes sense to give students a voice in the assessment process, so that they have some stake in it, a stake for the decisions they are empowered to make, not just for the consequences of failure. I do not mean, of course, that students should be making these decisions about portfolios without any guidance from their teachers, But students need to be able to exercise judgment, because it is in exercising judgment that students learn how to assess a piece of writing, or a whole collection of writing. If the contents of the portfolio are specified too narrowly, that is, if students are simply given collections of assignments to write and to put eventually in their “portfolios,” they will have little room to exercise judgement or to collaborate in the building of knowledge.

Ironically, as seen above, even in alternative assessments there may be little encouragement for students to exercise judgement, the two publisher’s portfolios being obvious examples. But constraints of this kind can appear in classroom-based alternative assessment programs as well as publishers’ portfolios. For example, advice from a recently published handbook for alternative assessment in classrooms asks teachers to consider the following questions as criteria for “ensuring that your tasks lead to sound assessments”:

. Do the tasks match the important outcome goals you have set for students? Do these goals reflect complex thinking skills, such as analysis, and synthesis?

. Do they pose an enduring problem type-the types of problems and situations that students are likely to face repeatedly in school and their future lives?

. Are the tasks fair and free of bias? For example, do they favor either boys or girls, students who have lived in a particular location or region, students with a particular cultural heritage, or those whose parents can afford to buy certain materials?

e Will the tasks be credible to important constituencies? Will they be seen

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as meaningful and challenging by students, parents and teachers? Do the tasks rely on quality subject matter content?

l Will the tasks be rn~n~~~ and engaging to students so that they will be motivated to show their capabilities? Do the tasks involve real problems, situations, and audiences? (Herman, Aschbacher, & Winters, 1992)

While these criteria are certainly valuable, it is important to notice that they are to be applied by teachers, not students. It is the teacher who sets the important outcome goals and who designs assessment tasks to match them. It is the teacher who decides whether the tasks pose “enduring” problems, are “fair and free of bias,” will be “credible to important constituencies.” Most ironic, it is the teacher who decides whether the tasks will be “meaningful and engaging” to the students. The very language of the criteria reveal the passive role students are assumed to play. Task development guidelines of this kind reveal how pervasive has been the influence of the testing movement on the classroom.

Looked at another way, it is also clear that curricular philosophy is reflected in these task development guidelines. Like the traditional testing movement, they reflect a traditional view of the educational enterprise, one in which schools and teachers set goals for students in compliance with state and district frameworks and one in which teachers make all the decisions about what students will write. Even newly minted “alternative” or portfolio assessments, then, may be in reality quite traditional, if they simply mirror traditional, assignment-giving approaches to the teaching of writing.

Choice and Constraints in Ponfolio Design

Clearly, one dimension along which portfolio models vary significantly is the degree of choice allowed the student. The student who fills his or her portfolio with carefully crafted exercises or examinations explicitly designed by the teacher has less freedom of choice than the student who is asked to select pieces that meet the requirements of certain categories, and still less than portfolios which are wide-open to student invention-the other end of the continuum of choice. Some frameworks are very prescribed and directive, some more open. In one way or another, the degree to which things are prescribed, along with what is prescribed, becomes a statement about what is valued. What is prescribed and how is an issue at the level of district and state-wide projects as well as in the classroom.

In California school districts, for example, where the new canon (for a time) was the set of writing types which appeared on the state-wide writing test, teachers in a number of schools asked their students to fill their portfolios with particular types of writing, for example, one “autobiographical incident” paper, one “speculation about cause and effect,” one “interpretation,” and so on, which came to be known as “menus.” These


particular lists of portfolio contents put the spotlight on the rhetorical characteristics of the products of student work. In an activity resembling a visit to a restaurant, students selected the best exemplars they could find of particular types of writing from the assignments they had collected to put in their portfolios. It is worth noting that the frameworks for these portfolios allow some freedom of choice (best from a particular category), but they are clearly not as wide-open as frameworks which allow the student to select the genres to put into the portfolio. Nor do they particularly encourage students to set their own goals for writing. Although particular topics for writing are not required, many of the important decisions for students about what will be learned, what will be assessed, and what will be valued have already been made.

In contrast to menus which require particular types of writing, in Pitts- burgh students put four pieces of writing selected from the work in their writing folder into their portfolios. Each piece is accompanied by a reflection on the piece chosen. They also include a “Portrait of Myself as a Writer,” a final reflection, a portfolio table of contents and the table of contents from their writing folder. All of the portfolio pieces are selected by the student, Their selections are made in relation to open-ended dimensions: accomplishment in writing, use of processes and resources for writing, and development as a writer. The complete evaluation framework is displayed in Appendix 1 (p. 204).

Project coordinators and teachers in Pittsburgh believe that “it is this selection process that engenders both the understanding of [the student] as a writer and learner and the assumption of [the student’s] identity as a writer” (project handout). Underlying this portfolio framework, then, is the belief that learning involves making choices and exercising judgment and that without practicing these skills a student will not learn to write. Results from this project indicate that it may not be necessary to streamline and standardize collection procedures in order to achieve fair and responsible judgments of student performance. Although Arts PROPEL portfolios include diverse kinds of writing, respectable statistical indicators of consis- tency in scoring have been achieved (LeMahieu, Gitomer, & Eresh, in press).

Frameworks based on dimensions of learning provide another kind of open-ended alternative to prescriptive menus. Rather than asking students to submit a certain number of specified kinds of pieces, guidelines for putting together a portfolio based on dimensions of learning ask students to submit evidence of whatever knowledge, abilities or habits of mind are encompassed by those dimensions. In California, for example, teachers, administrators and other educators around the state, working with members of the Portfolio Task Force of the California Learning Assessment System (CLAS), generated a framework to guide students

194 5. Murphy

in demonstrating their learning in the language arts. With their teachers’ assistance, students select work to show their accomplishments in two broad dimensions of learning: “Constructing Meaning” and “Composing and Expressing Ideas.” Elaborations of the dimensions emphasize effective use of processes. For example, one way students can demonstrate accomplishment in “constructing meaning” is to show that they “respond to, interpret, analyze, and make connections within and among works of literature and other texts, oral ~mmunication, and personal experiences.” To demonstrate accomplishment in “composing and expressing ideas,” students are expected to show that they can “communicate for a variety of purposes and audiences and in different genres,” and use “a range of processes from planning to revising, editing and presenting.” A Working Draft (._Idy, 1994) of the Dimensions of Learning in Language Arts appears in Appendix 2 (p. 205).

Broadly speaking, these dimensions are designed to “give students opportunities to demonstrate the breadth and depth of their abilities to read, write, listen, and speak, as they construct meaning about their lives and the world in which they live” (CLAS, 1994, p. 2). The questions following each of the dimensions are intended to help teachers and students determine whether a student’s portfolio provides evidence of each dimension. They do not, however, prescribe precisely how the student is to demonstrate the dimensions. By adopting this approach, CLAS is attempting to “support and reflect new instructional practices that empower students to create and express meaning in multiple ways” (CLAS, 1994, p. 1). And, because the dimensions are broad in scope, students have a good deal of latitude in selecting evidence to demonstrate accomplishment in each of the dimensions. Yet at the same time, the framework is not entirely open to student invention. The dimensions of learning clearly reflect the philosophical framework for integrated studies in English language arts which has been adopted in California. As one participant in the development meetings put it, “The dimensions operate like a building code, saying ‘these are the elements, you build your own house.’ ” (CLAS, 1993).

The idea that standards can be met and competence and knowledge demonstrated “in multiple ways” is not a new idea in curriculum. It is an idea central to individualized forms of teaching and to a constructivist perspective. However, this kind of open-ended framework may promote educational aims which, until now, have been discouraged by most existing assessment methods, which focus attention on highly discrete and defined tasks and are preoccupied with standardized procedures and standardized outcomes. In contrast, the idea that competence or knowledge can be demonstrated in multiple ways implies a very different educational philosophy than does a system based on measurement and control. Because it is open-ended, the proposed CLAS portfolio framework reveals a philo-


sophical stance which privileges diversity and individualization over control and standardization in both curriculum and assessment. This project demonstrates the potential of portfolios to accommodate multiple approaches to meeting standards. At the same time, the use of dimensions can amplify the curricular influence of the assessment, because articula- tion of the dimensions makes explicit the curricular values underlying the assessment, values which in turn can be used to guide instructional decision making. In combination with a strong self-assessment component, then, a dimensional approach can enhance the positive impact of the assessment.

Portfolios as Catalysts for Curricular Reform Clearly, deciding to engage in “portfolio practice,” in and of itself, is not sufficient to create curricular change, if “portfolio practice” simply means more of the same, but put in a folder. Substantive change requires altering what actually happens in classrooms as students and teachers interact with subjects for study. Yet portfolios can lead to substantive change, given adequate time and support for teachers to experiment with them and to use them as a way to learn about their students and their practice. My evidence for this claim is the story of one portfolio program-not a fool proof recipe for educational reform, but a single story of curricular evolution. In relating the story, I am borrowing heavily from an address by my colleague, Mary Ann Smith (1993). Much of the story I knew, but she helped me see it in a new light.

The program began several years ago in a suburban school in Northern California (see also Murphy & Smith, 1991). Funded by the California Assessment Program, a group of English teachers at Mt. Diablo High School in Concord, California, agreed to experiment with portfolios. Par- ticipation in the program was voluntary; all of the English teachers at the school met to design the program. The first year they decided to follow the freshman class through four years of portfolios. (Not unlike other teachers who are thinking about using portfolios, they were somewhat concerned about the extra work such a program might generate.) Later, the other grade levels were added. Each year, the teachers reframed their portfolio practice, moving toward a more open-ended approach. That is, although the teachers began with a portfolio model which had very specific requirements to be met by all of the freshman students, ultimately they moved to an open-ended model which could accommodate the work of individual classrooms and the different approaches of individual teachers as well as students.

The first year the teachers decided to ask students to create a portfolio of specified writing types. Students from all of the ninth grade classes were asked to put the following in their portfolios:

196 S.Murphy

l a paper about a childhood memory l an opinion paper l a piece of daily writing from a journal or log . a piece of descriptive writing l a “wildcard” (student’s own choice) . one entry that shows process l an introductory letter.

The teachers had three purposes which they wanted to accomplish with this design: (1) to empower and motivate their students as writers, (2) to assess their teaching of writing, and (3) to have the portfolios serve as culminating activity for the students at the end of the semester or year, and potentially at the end of their high school career. Although this portfolio model represented certain aspects of the curriculum at the school, it failed to represent others Some students complained, for example, that except for the “wildcard” slot in the portfolio, there was no “place” in the portfolio for their poetry. When the students were asked about the program, they made it clear that they wanted more freedom of choice, not less. The teachers, too, discovered something about the issue of choice when they asked for particular types of writing: if they did not emphasize a particular type in the curriculum, students had little to choose from when it came time to put their final portfolios together. The first year, then, the teachers learned that prescriptive menus put constraints on curriculum. Specified requirements meant that they had to emphasize the curriculum defined by the portfolio.

The second year the teachers added new purposes to the ones they had the year before. They wanted (1) to have students recognize and analyze their growth from year to year, (2) to find out whether students revise, (3) to expand the audience of portfolio readers, and (4) to use the portfolios as a tool for ongoing sharing of teaching strategies. These new purposes reflect the teachers’ growing interest in inquiry and their inclination to research and reflect on their own teaching and the learning occurring in their classrooms. In addition, responding to what had been learned the year before, the teachers decided to move away from an emphasis on products to focus instead on processes and on writing strategies. Instead of requiring particular pieces of writing, students from all of the tenth grade classes were asked to demonstrate their ability to:

. respond to literature

. compare and contrast

. reflect

. state and support an opinion.

Students were again asked to include a “wild card” (student’s own choice) and an introductory letter. The change from emphasizing types of


writing to emphasizing strategies allowed the teachers at this school to help their students see the portfolios as something more than folders containing individual assignments Single strategies conld be demonstrated across several pieces, and several strategies could be demonstrated in a single piece.

In year three, the teachers moved even further toward an open-ended design, one which encouraged creativity and which focused on the writer as an ~di~dual in the process of development. A particular focus for the teachers’ inquiry was to see what students knew and could demonstrate about revision. For the most part, students were not asked to write to particular types or topics; rather they were asked to include:

l a “personal best” * a “most imaginative” l a paper from another discipline . a paper that shows process and revision . a piece that shows potential for further work l a paper that states and supports an opinion l a reflective letter that focuses on oneself as a writer.

Less constrained by requirements to demonstrate particular strategies, this open-ended design asks students to exercise more judgment and encourages even more reflection than the previous years’ designs.

In the following year, the design had even fewer externally imposed constraints on the student writers in terms of the characteristics of particular pieces Although students were asked for specific kinds of documentation (an introductory letter, a table of contents, certain kinds of reflection), substantive decisions about the contents were left up to the students’ choice and invention. In this fourth year, the graduation year, the teachers wanted to give the students “a sense of completion, pride and celebration,” to provide them with “a tangible product” of their four years at the school, to have them ‘“see themselves as writers engaged in writing as a lifelong learning process,” to have them “see writing as a tool for personal explora- tion,” and to have them “actively engaged in the process of selecting pieces which show their range as writers.” Students were asked to include:

. an introductory letter * six of your best pieces that show your range as a writer * reflection on how the six pieces show your range as a writer . explanation of each piece of writing in the portfolio (assignment, focus

of writing) . reflection on how the portfolio as a whole mirrors you as an individual,

showing your growth and change as a person and as a writer e table of contents

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As long as the students demonstrated their competence across a range of different audiences and purposes for writing, they were free to put whatever kinds of writing they chose into the portfolio. Thus, the design of the portfolio program could accommodate a good deal of freedom for individual choice by students; equally important, it could accommodate individual variation across the classrooms of different teachers. That is, because the design was open-ended, it could accommodate diversity in the ways individuals created their portfolios and in the ways teachers structured their classes.

The evolution in this particular portfolio program was from a model in which everyone was more or less marching to the same drummer and tune, toward a model which not only accommodated, but privileged, individual- ity and diversity. This open-ended framework encouraged students to be versatile as writers, that is, to show that they could adapt their writing to different audiences and pu~oses and subjects. Although open-ended, then, this model required students to meet a standard. The standard was not defined in prescriptive terms, as might be expected in an assessment program with a different curricular perspective. It was flexible, and it reflected a substantive change in the teachers’ views of what should be assessed and how, and why. Expressed in terms that define writing ability as a capacity which varies situationally, the standard. was anchored in, and complemen- tary to, a theoretical conception of writing as a multidimensional construct. In addition, over the four years, the evolving model increasingly required that students develop and exercise their own standards, which is itself a high standard to set for students.

Although the model was flexible, the program as a whole provided a good deal of structure and scaffolding for learning. The structure, however, was not embedded in prespecified requirements for particular kinds of tasks to be performed in particular ways; it was embedded in the day-to-day fray of teaching. Scaffolding was provided in the teacher-student conferences, in peer conferences, in feedback tied to the intentions and work of individual writers. It placed special demands upon the teachers because it emphasized the classroom community as resource as opposed to prepared instructional materials. It recast the roles of students, asking them to assume new responsibility for their learning and for their own assessment.

Clearly, the model these teachers created reflects a constructivist view of learning. Its focus is on the individual and the individuals active role in the creation of understanding. In addition, it is in tune with current theories of writing and writing development. Writing is conceptualized as a process, not a product, so that assessment, rather than an obligation to compare written products to one another, becomes an opportunity to learn what students know and are able to do, what writing strategies they’ve learned and how they exercise judgment about when to use them. Moreover,


writing is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct. Thus, the model is in tune with current theoretical perspectives on the nature of writing.

What may be somewhat less apparent in this model is its “socio-cognitive” view of writing. Curricular approaches which reflect this theoretical perspective on writing treat the classroom as a community of writers and readers, a community in which knowledge is constructed collaboratively (Atwell, 1987; Graves, 1983). Peer response, publication, writing confer- ence, teacher as writing coach, dialogue journal-all of these teaching strategies are ways to situate students as active participants, as writers with readers. Many contemporary formulations of theory, which could be loosely grouped under the “socio-cognitive” umbrella, see writing as embedded in social interaction (e.g., see Dyson, 1990,1993; Nystrand, 1989; Witte, 1992). For the teachers in this particular portfolio program, a “social- cognitive” view of writing is already part of their classroom culture; it is incorporated in the interactive kinds of activities in which their students are engaged. It is also reflected in the choice the teachers have made about the kinds of information they provide to students about the results of their reading of the portfolios at the end of the year. Rather than assign numbers in relation to levels on a rubric, these teachers write letters to their students about their portfolios. Their assessment practice, then, is consonant with a view of the classroom as a community of writers and readers engaged in an ongoing dialogue about writing.

On another dimension, this portfolio model departs in yet more fundamental ways from traditional approaches to assessment. First, as Mary Ann Smith says, the program is not based on “ready-to-wear” or “hand-me- down” portfolios. It’s a program created by the teachers and students, not one that is designed by some other agency. Smith draws our attention to the inherent irony in a reform movement which advises teachers to adopt a constructivist perspective, to learn new ways to encourage students to construct knowledge and to work together on challenging, long-term projects, but which gives the teachers prepackaged instructional and assessment programs to implement (Smith, 1993). Second, this portfolio model departs from traditional approaches to assessment because it has been allowed to grow and develop, an approach which implicitly recognizes the reciprocity of assessment and curriculum and which encourages professional development and inquiry. The assessment is defined, and redefined, through its relationship to the evolving curriculum and to the teachers’ understanding of it. In this model, assessment and curriculum are highly interdependent; when one changes, so must the other. In this respect, the model represents a radical departure from the traditional use of assessment in educational reform, including those portfolio assessments which measure students’ per- formances against a fixed standard for accountability purposes in programs which essentially do not change from year to year. It is a departure, how-

200 S. Murphy

ever, which makes this assessment model all the more compatible with curricular philosophies encouraging the development of teachers and students and with educational reform strategies seeking to empower them. That compatibility extends in this portfolio program, not just to the design of the portfolio itself, but to the process of its development.

Conclusion Elliot Eisner (1979) says, “Evaluation methods should be instrumental to the ends we seek; they should not, as so many of them do now, impede the realization of such ends” (p. 21). For too long, we have allowed assessment to drive curriculum in destructive ways. No doubt, it is time to create assessments to mirror what we value. However, the recent rush to use assessment in curricular reform is a two-edged sword. It rests on the assumption, well documented, that teachers will teach to the test, especially if high stakes are attached. The usual practice, in the context of this assumption, is to create a test “worth teaching to.” While this may be an effective way to indirectly influence curriculum, there is a danger that responses to new large-scale assessment programs, including those which incorporate portfolios, will be simply mechanical and superficial, Large- scale assessments have in the past overemphasized outcomes to the detri- ment of process, reinforcing a view of schooling as a technical enterprise (Salganik, 1985). That possibility exists as well for large-scale uses of portfolios, especially if they are highly standardized.

The word “portfolio,” by itself, means little. It is the individual decisions about what to put in portfolios, how to evaluate them, as well as the way those decisions are made and by whom, that ultimately define the values behind an assessment. Those values are reflected in procedures for imple- menting programs as well as in the characteristics of the programs themselves. The process by which assessments are developed is perhaps as important as what is developed. In the past, large-scale accountability assessment has undermined the authority of teachers’ professional judgment and constrained their opportunities for professional growth (Corbett & Wilson, 1991; Smith, 1991). Creating portfolio assessment systems which contribute to the professionalization of teaching and to the professional development of teachers will require that teachers assume ownership and become full participants in all phases of the assessment process.

If portfolio assessments are meant to be compatible with new views of learning which emphasize the student’s active role in constructing meaning, then students, like teachers, will need to become full participants in the assessment process. From the student’s perspective, portfolios can allow students to gain some control over the process, to demonstrate more com- pletely in their own terms what they know and can do, and to set their own goals and assess their progress toward them. But if the contents of portfolios

#bdoliis ond Currkulum Reform 201

and the processes for generating them are externally mandated and highly standardized, students will have little chance to exercise judgment or develop responsibility. If one of the goals of our educational system is to enhance the development of students’ individual initiative, creativity, and responsibility, then students will need to be allowed some authority in deciding how their work will be represented. In turn, assessment systems will need to accommodate some diversity in the ways that standards can be met.

Portfolios offer considerable potential for involving students in assessment in ways which encourage them to become active participants in learning and in evaluating their own growth. They offer teachers opportunities for professional development and empowerment. Yet these potential benefits may be lost if assessment approaches are employed which contra- dict these goals. The relationship between assessment and curriculum is a powerful dialectic. Reflecting on that dialectic, and on the values we want our educational system to promote, will help ensure that the forms of assessment we adopt complement those values.

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S. Murphy

APPENDIX 1 Arts PROPEL: Portfolio Evaluation IFkamework

Student writer Grade Teacher School

The contents of this student’s portfolio demonstrate: (Please check where appropriate.)

Inadequate Outstanding A~ompl~hment in writing ~- ~_I___(

. meeting wo~hwhile challenges

. establishing and maintaining purpose l use of the techniques and choices of the genre . organ~ation, deveIopment, use of detail . control of conventions, vocabulary, sentence structure . awareness of the needs of the audience . use of language, sound, images, tone, voice 9 humor, metaphor, playfulness

Use of processes and resources for writing ~~ -~

awareness of strategies and processes for writing use of processes: prewriting, drafting, revision awareness of features important to writing ability to see strengths and opportunities in own writing ability to describe what one sees and knows about writing use of the classroom social context for writing use of available experience and resources (one’s own, the school’s, the community’s)

Development as a writer ‘- -- --

progress from early to late pieces, growth, development increased understanding of features and options important to writing engagement with writing use of writing for different purposes, genres, and audiences sense of self as a writer, achievements and purposes as a writer evolution of personal criteria and standards for writing increased investment in writing tasks

(Arts PROPEL, Education Testing Service and Fellows of Harvard College, 1993) This evaluation framework was developed by teachers and administrators in Pittsburgh

with the guidance of Roberta Camp and Dennie Wolf.

Portfolios and Curriculum Reform

This student’s strengths in writing include:

205

?his student’s developmental needs as a writer include:

APPENDIX 2 Working Draft (July, 1994)

Dimensions of Learning in Language Arts

The CLAS organic portfolio assessment in language arts is designed to give students opportunities to demonstrate the breadth and depth of their abilities to read, write, listen and speak, as they construct meaning about their lives and the world in which they live. With their teachers’ assistance, they select work and other evidence that shows their accomplishment in the following dimension of learning. The accompanying question may help teachers and students determine whether the assessment portfolio provides evidence of the dimensions.

CONSTRUCTING MEANING: Students respond to, interpret, analyze, and make connections within and among works of literature and other texts, oral communication, and personal experiences. Students consider multiple perspectives about issues, customs, values, ethics, and beliefs, which they encounter in a variety of texts and personal experiences. They take risks by questioning and evaluating text and oral communication, by making and supporting predictions and inferences, and by developing and defending positions and interpretations. They consider the effect of language, including literal and figurative meaning, connotation and denota- tion. They reflect on and refine responses, interpretations, and analyses by careful revisiting of text and by listening to others.

[California Learning Assessment System, Dimensions of Learning in Language Arts, (CLAS), 1994, p. 1)

These dimensions of learning were developed through the work of California teachers and under the direction of the Center for Performance Assessment at Educational Testing Service (ETS). The development work is supported by the California Department of Education, contract #9334, as part of the California Learning Assessment System/ETS organic portfolio assessment project. For more information, contact the ETS Center for Performance Assess- ment at Trans Pacific Center Building, 1000 Broadway, Oakland, CA, 94607.

206 5. Murphy

What in the assessment portfolio shows whether and how well the student:

l responds to what was read or heard with own ideas, interpretations, analyses?

. connects ideas from readings, oral communication, and experiences?

. considers various personal and cultural perspectives? l takes risks by questioning, by going beyond literal meaning and by

developing and defending or explaining a position or point of view? l considers the effect of language? l reflects on and refines responses, interpretations and analyses?

COMPOSING AND EXPRESSING IDEAS: Students communicate for a variety of purposes, with a variety of audiences, and in a variety of forms. Their written and oral communication is clearly focused; ideas are coherent, and effectively organized and developed. They use language effectively to compose and express thoughts. They draw on a variety of resources including people, print, and nonprint materials, technology, and self evaluation to help them develop, revise, and present written and oral communication. They engage in processes, from planning to publishing and presenting; when appropriate, they do substantial and thoughtful revision leading to polished products. Through editing, they show command of sentence structure and conventions appropriate to audience and purpose.

What in the assessment portfolio shows whether and how well the student:

. communicates for a variety of purposes and audiences and in different genres, both orally and in writing?

. establishes clear focus, coherence, organization, and development in communications?

. uses effective language which is appropriate to audience and purpose? l uses resources to develop, revise, and present written and oral communi-

cation? l uses a range of processes from planning to revising, editing, and present-

ing?

portfolios and curriculum reform: patterns in practice

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