As Internet culture is a mainstay of young adults, I determined that the more relevant and topical materials that can be brought in would increase attentiveness and retention of information. One of these Internet cultural phenomena is memes. Still photos or clips are pulled from popular media and reconfigured to create humorous - reminiscent of inside jokes - content that is shared across the various social media platforms. Because online tools (such as DMLL - further discussed in section 3) are abundant, it’s imperative that students know how to communicate with such aspects of the target language. Each section of the assessment was designed with heavy consideration of its practicality and authenticity. Utilizing authentic and practical materials, Brown & Abeywickrama (2019) writes that with academic writing or a focused genre, the kind of materials must have these guaranteed aspect to bring out the best writing from students. Capturing these aspects, the teacher becomes more of a facilitator, rather than an instructor, ultimately authenticating and making practical use of time (p. 242).

The purpose of this pragmatics assessment is to be a target language use (TLU) task to interpret the intended meaning(s) behind the language that is used in internet memes. The domain would be focused on cultural English language comprehension from the United States.The assessment was broken into three parts: First, students would take a four-question paper test on a few modern/pre-modern internet memes that are conveying different themes and/or emotions to the reader. The second part of this assessment would have students create four of their own memes using the blank templates given. They would be of similar emotional significance as the first section (meaning they convey roughly the same idea, joke, or relatable situation). The third and final element of the assessment (which students would not be graded on, rather it’s just for fun and a small ice-breaker) would ask students to select one of the eight memes used through the first two sections and attempt to recreate the physical representation of the emotions being conveyed without using their voices (these referenced memes are seen in Figures 1-8 in the artifact submission). 

I selected this artifact to showcase a concrete understanding of pragmatic assessment creation through the considerate design choices made. In part, I wanted to make an introductory assessment that would be a jumping-off point for classroom relations to form and a way to subtly collect proficiency data (what are the current abilities of interpretation within the class’ cohort). 

The second assessment artifact that I have selected is around writing, specifically creative writing. The TLU would be writing a prologue for a piece of media that currently does not possess one. The domain would be focused on writing conventions (expository, for instance) and narrative hooks. Students will be assessed on their writing abilities with small, 5-minute scripts. Their task is to draft a prologue to a piece of literature or theatre script that does not currently have one. I wanted to make an assessment that encourages students to be inventive in their storytelling strategies and how they would introduce a story that they already know and love. At this point in my theatre course, we would have covered examples of expository pieces from such famous pieces as Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, Lolita, written by Vladimir Nabokov, and the open crawl from Star Wars: A New Hope. 

I designed the assessment to have the specific goal of teaching creative writing skills that will translate into applicable skills such as innovative problem-solving within the workplace. I believe that this artifact illustrates my understanding of a writing assessment focused on evaluating creative elements of English. With this assessment, I wanted to capitalize on the students' already present love of their favorite stories. While writing can be intensely intimidating, starting with content that is familiar invites students to make that daunting first step into creative writing. By utilizing content that they already enjoy as a basis, and through the inclusion of classic and modern pieces, students are exposed to a multiplicity of emotional and invigorating works of fiction that encourage engagement. 

The LTS program has brought opportunities that called for the real application of the skills learned through the program. My selected artifact for the application of assessment, is my experience grading for the LING 410: Language Pedagogy courses. This course is taken only by international students who are focused on learning how to teach whilst also learning academic English writing by creating weekly journal entries on a predetermined topic for a given week. Within these, they varied from reflecting on challenging tasks from the work week to blueprints of their course curriculums. 

My role during three instances of the course (Spring 2023, Winter 2023, and end of Fall 2022) was to simply grade a total of three students’ work for each respective class on five categories through a holistic rubric. The categories were scored from 1 (being the lowest) and 4 (being the highest) on Organization, Focus on Topic (Content), Sentence Structure (Sentence Fluency), Writing Conventions, and Completeness. Though my assigned duties were to simply give students a numeral grade, I had deviated and wrote extensive feedback on all their assignments. 

Washback became an integral (and mandatory) part of the grading relationship (Brown & Abeywickrama, p. 39). As my feedback became more focused, I began implementing a policy of students needing to briefly reflect on my comments made and explain how it was helpful, confusing, or if they felt unsure of how to apply it. Initial washback was more negative, as students would give remarks on how many topics I would give feedback on, which led me to wonder if I was wrong in my implementation. After some consideration, I reached out to a former Clark’s Honors College (CHC) professor, Dr. Daphne Gallagher, for some advice. She gleaned that focus on two main areas that are the most important for the student to improve upon. Afterward, if students are visibility improving, move to the next topic. Initially, I was concerned with how exactly to filter what would be the most significant to select for my feedback, but I had come to the realization, this is where Needs Analysis (NA) comes into play (Nation, 2010). I considered exactly what the students previously mentioned to me in either meetings or the past notes in correlation to what I had witnessed in their writing. This led to a more digestible amount of feedback on my assessment of their skills without the preserved pressure of the students needing to completely rework their writing abilities.

I selected this to be my assessment implementation artifact because of the lessons that I learned from the experience. For future work in teaching and more specifically my grading practices, I will remember that the more effective way to give feedback is through specific, detailed comments, which are more helpful than an abundant pile of helpful, but seemingly arbitrary notes. “I was so surprised that the comments and feedback you made were so big. My past teachers never gave me words, only a grade,” wrote one student in the Spring 2023 course. I began to see why teachers become emotionally invested in their careers and those who they are instructing.