ABSTRACT
Assessment in media writing courses is both simple and complex. It is simple because the end result of all media writing assignments is an explicit real-world product—the script. It is complex because the writer is a student, not a professional. Nothing is as effortless to grade as a script that meets standards of professional quality. Nothing is as disheartening as dealing with a script that has totally missed the mark. In the real world, anything less than an “A” can be discarded. In the academic world, anything less than an “A” implicitly demands a diagnostic assessment. One purpose of this chapter is to explain how this academic ideal might be realistically pursued to the benefit of students, instructors, and academic institutions. A second, and no less challenging purpose, is to describe how systematic procedures for assessing the success of a media writing course might be implemented to serve the same constituencies in the long term.
