Journal of Writing Assessment

This article provides a polyvocal narrative of the development, initial assessment, and ongoing revision of an Informed Self-Placement (ISP) process initially implemented during the COVID pandemic. The authors intersperse collectively narrated description how the ISP unfolded in its first two years with individual reflections on those experiences from a variety of positions and identities. Data so far suggest that this ISP process has narrowed but not fully closed racial equity gaps in first-year writing placement while maintaining enrollments and academic performance in the first-year writing course sequence. Persistent equity issues reside not only in the ISP instrument itself but the systems by which students learn about the ISP and the opportunities they have to complete it.