The edTPA, a standardized teacher performance assessment developed by Stanford University and launched by the Pearson corporation, is quickly becoming a national measure of preservice teacher effectiveness. As more states adopt this assessment as a required component of successful completion of teacher education programs and licensure, we are compelled to critique the design, implementation, and evaluation of this high-stakes testing instrument. Our goal is to articulate the effects of this assessment on writing teacher education and the teaching of writing more broadly. Specifically, we argue that programmatic or individual interpretation of the edTPA can marginalize writing instruction (and writing teacher education) by focusing the English language arts “subject specific pedagogy” assessment on literature; further, we want to suggest opportunities for edTPA to emphasize the discursive nature of effective writing instruction for a range of students. We hope to use our experiences preparing for the edTPA to help other writing teacher educators consider how to respond in their states, classes, and with students in ways that promote successful writing instruction
