Writing and School Reform: Writing Instruction in the Age of Common Core and Standardized Testing

In Writing and School Reform, Joanne Addison and Sharon James McGee respond to a testing and accountability movement that has imposed increasingly stronger measures of control over our classrooms, shifted teaching away from best practices, and eroded teacher and student agency. Drawing on historical and empirical research, Writing and School Reform details the origins of the accountability movement, explores its emerging effects on the teaching of writing, and charts a path forward that reasserts the agency of teachers and researchers in the field.

Joanne Addison is Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research focuses on educational policy and practice as well as empirical research in writing studies and online learning. She has published in College Composition and Communication, Rhetoric Review, Written Communication, Computers and Composition, Journal of Writing Assessment, and other journals as well as a number of edited collections. With Sharon James McGee, she co-edited the bookFeminist Empirical Research.

Sharon James McGee is Professor and Chair of the Department of English Language and Literature at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her research interests include empirical studies of writing and learning, research methodologies, writing across/within disciplines, and academic administration. With Carolyn Handa, she co-edited Discord and Direction: The Postmodern Writing Program Administrator, among other works.