Here are a few of my thoughts on what I might be interested in contributing to a Canadian Caucus sponsored session at next year's 4Cs (this is in response to Cathy Schryer's request a few days ago for some feedback -- I hope my thoughts prompt some from others as well!). I'm particularly interested in the general topic of assessment. Specifically, I would like to do some reflecting on the implications (theoretical, practical and especially socio-political) of the term "competency" as a standard for assessing student writing. At Laurentian, we have a "writing competency requirement" which is linked in an uneasy fashion to WAC. One thing that I'd like to explore are the cultural values and behaviours inherent in concepts of competency -- in other words, the cultural values/behaviours/performances of the academic discourse community. I might link this with the implication of competency as providing a kind of threshold ability or skill, as contrasted to expertise or excellence -- in other words, becoming competent in a cultural discourse/behaviour allows one barely to step across the threshold into the "inner sanctum", but it doesn't grant full or dominant membership. These are just a few very preliminary musings. It occurs to me that the topic of assessment could be interwoven with the topic of voice, especially if the issue is student voices -- i.e., what kinds of voices do students need to speak with in order to be assessed as competent? Philippa Spoel [log in to unmask]