Annotated Bibliography: Pat Belanoff

Rachelle Phelps
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Introduction

Pat Belanoff started off her career with a degree in medieval literature. She published articles about the woman's role in medieval literature and published a writing handbook, The Right Handbook. When she moved to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, she began to play a major role in assessment. Because the proficiency exam for freshman English classes was inadequate at the university, Belanoff, along with Peter Elbow, formed a new assessment program based on portfolios. The program was successful at Stony Brook and immediately after Ms. Belanoff presented the idea at a conference in 1986, portfolio assessment programs exploded in many schools.

The most definitive description of this program is Elbow and Belanoff's "State University of New York, Stony Brook: Portfolio-Based Evaluation Program." It outlines the details of the program and relates some problems that arose during its implementation. All of Belanoff's articles in writing assessment shown here are centered around this type of evaluation. I arranged them chronologically because as time passed, each article added one more new aspect to her portfolio assessment argument.

Common threads throughout Belanoff's literature include collaboration between students, teachers and program administrators, specifically teacher collaboration about the subjectivity of grading writing. Also, she suggests in almost every one of her articles that experimentation is the key to a successful portfolio assessment program. The best concrete example of Belanoff's portfolio assessment program is A Community of Writers, which gives a step-by-step approach to placing portfolios in a grade-oriented classroom.

Belanoff is presently the Director of Writing Programs at the State University of New York-Stony Brook. She is the president of the SUNY Council on Writing and a member of the College Steering Committee of NCTE.

Bibliographies

Belanoff, Pat and Peter Elbow. "Using Portfolios to Increase Collaboration and Community in a Writing Program." Writing Program Administrators 9.3 (1986): 27-40.

Belanoff and Elbow retrace the formation of the portfolio assessment program at Stony Brook in order to demonstrate the increase of collaboration and community within their own program. They write that students, teachers and writing program administrators can benefit from portfolios. In such an assessment program, students learn to rely on teachers and peers for success through peer revision and teacher comments. Teachers learn to consider their own colleagues' opinions in order to try to remain objective and learn to become critical of their own biased grading habits. Students and teachers learn to respect each other and work toward a common goal: success. With portfolios, writing program administrators keep their own ideas prominent, but are still able to allow teachers their own control of the classroom. Belanoff and Elbow suggest that their program is not perfect. Both authors relate that it is up to the students, teachers and writing program administrators to experiment with their own program until it leads to success for the writing student.

Belanoff, Pat. "Addendum." Portfolios. Eds. Pat Belanoff and Marcia Dickson. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1991. 30-37.

In an addition to her article, "Using Portfolios to Increase Collaboration and Community in a Writing Program," Pat Belanoff discusses the development of the portfolio assessment program at Stony Brook over a six year period. She calls attention to problems that have arisen, such as teacher disagreements on the revision question, "At what point does a piece of writing cease to be a student's own?" She argues that because most writing takes place in a community and with community support it never really is the writer's own creation. Other conflicts are centered around specifics like the prose piece required in the portfolio (prose vs. poetry) along with portfolio submission anxiety from teachers and students. Belanoff raises the questions, but is not able to give answers. She admits that the assessment program is always a work in progress, but it is an enjoyable process that provides everyone involved with a chance to learn.

Belanoff, Pat and Marcia Dickson, eds. Portfolios. Portmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc., 1991.

This book offers an extensive study of the use of portfolios in assessment. By compiling essays from myriad educators, Belanoff and Dickson provide their readers with an adequate amount of information about the "process and product" of portfolios. The first section of essays is dedicated to the use of portfolios as proficiency tests. The authors use examples from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, portfolio use in Alaska and even in British schools. The second and third sections are devoted to program assessment , offering up different types of portfolios for different types of programs and classrooms. The last section addresses political issues that writing program administrators must face and debates the advantages and disadvantages of instituting a portfolio assessment program in any school. Belanoff nad Dickson provide a selected bibliography for further reading on the subject. This book is an essential guide for the use of portfolios from experts who know the trials and tribulations of forming a new assessment program. Belanoff attempts to define the portfolio assessment program in her own school and offer suggestions for improvements.

Belanoff, Pat. "The Myths of Assessment." Journal of Basic Writing 10.1 (1991): 54-66.

Patricia Belanoff breaks down four myths of assessment in the educative world. She proves that teachers and administrators are not clear on what exactly they are testing for or what exactly they are testing. She writes that questions about what good writing is and debates about differences in student performances on tests have not been solved and should not play a part in decisions concerning assessment. Belanoff also points out that set criteria in writing is always subjective and that it is not "possible to have an absolute standard and apply it uniformly." She suggests that it is necessary for teachers and administrators to relinquish these myths so that they may progress towards healthier education in the future. Belanoff finally offers a plan for implementing portfolios into a grade-oriented classroom. She reports that portfolio grading does not "take loads of time" and that it is more reliable than current methods. In this article, Belanoff attempts to clear up misunderstandings in the education realm in order to open doors for the use of portfolios in the classroom.

Belanoff, Pat. "Portfolios and Literacy: Why?" New Directions in Portfolio Assessment. Eds. Laurel Black, Donald A. Daiker, Jeffrey Sommers and Gail Stygall. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1994. 13-24.

Once again, Belanoff explores the development of portfolio assessment programs since their 1983 origin. In this article, however, Belanoff relates the history of literacy to the recent explosion in portfolio use across America. She adopts a colleague's three part approach to literacy, writing that, in the early years of American education, administrators concentrated on condoning "'literacy as adaptation,' which stresses functional aspects of the ability to read and write" and "literacy as grace" which focuses on intellectual and aesthetic knowledge. Belanoff proposes that as "literacy as power" (centered around the "ways in which reading and writing can advance group and community status) became more important, previous educational methods became meaningless. As incoming students became more diversified, the desire to teach writing for the general audience became prominent. Thus, portfolios, which allow for diversified products and therefore diversified authors, succeeded in realms where strict writing forms did not. Belanoff then goes on to suggest that portfolios "bring people together to create a literate environment" within a community. This article offers more support for portfolio use and helps to define portfolio assessment possibilities if used correctly.

Elbow, Peter and Pat Belanoff, eds. A Community of Writers. New York: McGraw-Hill,

Inc., 1995.

This textbook provides seventeen workshops that introduce students to different types of writing and audience. The workshops emphasize revision and give instructions on how to make up a portfolio of work. The second section provides twelve mini-workshops that discuss different grammatical questions and suggest various new and fun approaches to basic writing. The third section entitled "Sharing and Responding" provides a plethora of techniques for student or teacher feedback on papers. This text offers a way of incorporating portfolios into a regular writing classroom and gives expert advice on different areas from the cover letter of the portfolio (based on reflection) to exciting avenues of oral reading and revision processes. A Community of Writers provides a hands-on approach to this new technique and is obviously Elbow and Belanoff's attempt to lay out their program for teachers interested in implementing portfolios into their classrooms.

Belanoff, Patricia A. "Portfolios: The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful." Writing Portfolios in the Classroom. Eds. Robert Calfee and Pam Perfumo. Mahway, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., Publishers, 1996. 349-358.

In an epilogue to previous chapters in the book, Belanoff sums up the various topics and arguments during a conference on portfolios. She notes that portfolios are the epitome of the process movement in writing which occurred during the late 1960's and early 1970's. Patricia Belanoff reiterates her stance on portfolios; because standards in English have changed with the diversification of students, difficulties in language development have persisted and portfolios seem to be the only solution. She also remarks that because evaluation is never objective and is never easy, "evaluation and teaching must go hand in hand because then everyone learns-not just the student." As a result of this collaboration, ownership of portfolios becomes shared and teachers learn to give some power to students while simultaneously demanding some power over administrators. Belanoff ends her article with the conclusion that portfolio advantages outweigh disadvantages; they reward diversity, disperse power equally, encourage collaboration and cut down on competition. This article accurately sums up Belanoff's previous work and demonstrates the progress and development of the original portfolios into "the good, the bad and the beautiful."

Elbow, Peter and Pat Belanoff. "State University of New York, Stony Brook: Portfolio-Based Evaluation Program." New Methods in College Writing Programs. Eds. Paul Connolly and Teresa Vilardi. New York: MLA of America, 1997. 95-105.

Belanoff and Elbow outline the portfolio program they initiated in 1983 at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The authors begin by describing the origin of portfolio assessment, stating that the current proficiency exam for the freshman writing classes was inadequate in measuring students' writing ability. Belanoff and Elbow instituted the experimental portfolio program in place of the proficiency exam and found that it was successful. They outline the overall progress of the program, listing the advantages and disadvantages of the process. Belanoff and Elbow suggest that more strengths than weaknesses exist in the portfolio system, but admit that there seem to be some unsolvable problems. This is one of Belanoff's first reports of her and Elbow's portfolio assessment program. It gives the reader palpable information that can easily be integrated into a college classroom.

Elbow, Peter and Pat Belanoff. "Reflections on an Explosion." Situating Portfolios: Four Perspectives. Eds. Kathleen Blake Yancey and Irwin Weiser. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1997. 21-33.

Since the beginning of their experiment in 1983 at Stony Brook, Elbow and Belanoff have come across many advantages of portfolio assessment. The authors have noticed that portfolios have exploded into school systems across the nation and both are "excited and bemused-and proud too." They trace the growth of portfolios over an eleven-year span giving the necessity of compatible assessment strategies credit for the massive expansion. Elbow and Belanoff relate that minimal holistic scoring and instituting portfolios as an exit exam creates benefits for both teachers and students. After discussing the virtues of such a system, Belanoff and Elbow retrace problems that have come up, then state that the only way to solve them is through experimentation and redesign. Elbow and Belanoff reflect on their program's success in a variety of classroom situations and suggest tinkering with portfolio assessment in order to make it more useful.

Belanoff, Pat. "Foreword." The Theory and Practice of Grading Writing. Eds. Frances Zak and Christopher C. Weaver. New York: State University of New York Press, 1998. ix-xi.

In an introduction to a book centered around grading writing, Pat Belanoff discusses the subjectivity of grading writing. She insists that teachers must relinquish their tight hold on their own grading regulations in order to become more objective. It is necessary that teachers embrace their insecurities about grading, admit there is a problem, and then communicate with the public and their colleagues to reach solutions. Belanoff writes that this book offers "an hones discussion on actual grading-one which all of us involved hope will continue as long as teachers have to make judgements about students' work." This essay illustrates Belanoff's call for collaboration between teachers about writing in order to minimize subjective grading.