Are competency tests totally indefensible? I don't think so. It's interesting to me how fast arguments against competency testing devolve into dyadic, either/or positions: competency testing has nothing to do with writing, while proper writing teaching occurs in the disciplines; competency testing is a narrow reinforcement of superficial rules, while proper writing teaching is expansive and empowering; competency testing is a waste of time and money, while proper writing teaching is never funded adequately. Now while I generally agree with the second half of these dualistic statements, I don't buy the first half, and I think we need to be careful how we demonize competency testing. The dyadic thinking entailed here soon leads us into a number of invidious polarities: enlightened faculty and students vs benighted faculty and administration; or enlightened gown vs benighted town (and toadying administration). Once we're in this rhetorical space it's awfullly hard to get out. We've defined ourselves through opposition, and opposition we'll receive. That benighted town will wax poetic about pampered faculty squandering tax dollars on such frippery as writing empowerment; that toadying administration will argue that writing intensive classes are an unaffordable luxury as it removes the limits on our class sizes. We need to cultivate a rhetoric which is triadic if we're to escape unfruitful dichotomies and move toward a higher ground for writing in universities. For example, while we know that WAC is an extremely fertile pedagogy, it is not opposed to competency testing, only different. Competency testing's purpose, it's rhetorical situation, involves a larger discourse community than the disciplinary ones, a community that includes town as well as gown. Purpose here involves issues of accountability, of skills, of recognition that somehow disciplinary languages must partake of other more common usages if we are to be a community. The rhetoric of competency is about sending messages to faculty, administrators, students, the community about certain expectations, about performance. If we take a triadic perspective we can open these expectations up to discussion, and possibly change. If we stay dyadic, we encourage entrenchment, and retrenchment. Laurence Steven References: <[log in to unmask]>