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Computerized scoring of student essays that goes beyond grammar, spelling, and syntax to assess argumentation, structure, logical sequencing, and mechanics has been the stuff of fantasy and phobia for years. Employing robust artificial intelligence systems, programs such as Vantage Learning’s MY Access! provide immediate diagnostic assessments, with suggestions, guidance, and feedback. It is a prompt-driven, web-based writing environment which encourages students to submit a finished essay or a draft, obtain instant feedback, and rewrite it. Because improving writing skills requires not only practice, but also a honing of critical thinking skills, automated approaches can result in measurable improvements, particularly when the instructional strategy is carefully developed and implemented.

For writing courses that rely on standardized prompts, MY Access! can provide useful feedback and free the instructor’s time to focus on critical thinking skills, student interactions, and creative problem-solving.

“MY Access! consistently scores essays equally or better than humans,” said John Healy, of Vantage Learning. “The scoring is based on 200-300 essays previously scored, and the computer programs look at millions of patterns.”

According to Vantage Learning literature, the system analyzes more than 300 semantic, syntactic and discourse characteristics within five major domains: 1) Focus and Meaning; 2) Organization; 3) Content and Development; 4) Language Use and Style; 5) Mechanics and Conventions.

Needless to say, what such a system is teaching the student is how to conform to standards. Learning to “pass” and conform to such strictures has benefits to individuals wishing to pass standardized tests and to be able to generate culturally normative discourse. This is a rather cynical view of testing, I’ll admit. It is probably more useful to simply look at the utility of such services, and how they can help students succeed in very competitive environments where they must pass performative, diagnostic, normative, and criterion-referenced tests. For a better understanding of tests and testing, Anthony Bynum’s article, “Testing: Basic Concepts: Basic Terminology” http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/testing.htm is quite useful.

Vantage Learning cites one very impressive study: only 40% of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District achieved proficiency when tested on their writing skills. After engaging in a 12-week conventional remediation course which involved tutors, 43% achieved proficiency. Other students, who participated in a 12-week remediation course with MY Access! exhibited greater improvement, with 87% achieving competency.

On the face of it, MY Access! provides a very valuable tool, which gives individuals the skills they need to negotiate an increasingly competitive environment, and to obtain the mentoring (albeit by machine) not available in cash-strapped schools. Granted, students must respond to certain prompts, which can be demotivatingly dull. At this point, MY Access! has approximately 25 prompts at the first-year college composition (or higher) level. Topics include typical topics used in composition courses: Violence in Television; A Favorite Hobby, A Special Day, etc. Students may be bored by the prompts. The lack of prompts tacitly encourages plagiarism, and keeps individuals from engaging in an exploration of the topic.

Yet, there is definitely a need for a product of this type. Community colleges implementing MY Access! have found that it is helpful for students, particularly those needing remediation or special tutoring to help them write at the level they need to for college success. Students for whom English is a Second Language also find it helpful. The instrument has been programmed so that it detects patterns corresponding to the most common errors made by students for whom Spanish is their first language.

I’ve used it with online students based for whom English is a second language. They found it to be quite instructive and confidence-building, particularly in the construction of verb-preposition pairs, grammar, syntax, and word choice or usage. MY Access! can also be invaluable for students preparing for the GED by taking practice exams, (http://www.acenet.edu/clll/ged/sampQ-writing2.cfm) or who are planning to CLEP out of courses.

However, it must be noted that MY Access! would effectively slap the hands of budding John Updikes, Jack Kerouacs, or Toni Morrisons. In order to keep creative, talented writers engaged, the instructor must encourage students to look at MY Access! as a kind of dull, obligatory game - they kind one plays in corporate team-building and/or “right-sizing” retreats and on long, tedious car trips with a pesky little brother.

Currently, MY Access! is marketed to individual students, both home-school students and others through resellers such as sonlight.com. They are a secondary vendor and can accommodate individual licenses, where as the company works directly with larger clients, such as universities and colleges.