Patchwork assessment (PA) offers Latin teachers a framework to empower students, retain students from diverse backgrounds, and deeply engage them in ongoing study of Latin languages and literature. PA frameworks vary but must include core elements. All students must produce several assessments, or “patches,” throughout a course to demonstrate their learning; have some level of choice in choosing or constructing their particular patches; submit formative work and regularly receive feedback from instructors and/or peers; reflect on their learning processes throughout, for example in a private journal, or an online discussion board; and generate a formal reflection on their learning journey that “stitches” their learning in the other patches together, creating a personalized learning “quilt”, or “patchwork”. Previous research on PA has indicated that it can be particularly inclusive of a diverse range of students, because it is learner-centered, creates assessment literacy and fosters student autonomy (Hanesworth, Bracken, and Elkington; Gandhi).
Seeking an inclusive model for Latin assessment, the author has designed and taught several Latin courses using patchwork assessment, including one where she ran an ethics-approved study on her students’ evaluation of PA. In this article she first outlines the core elements of PA from the research literature. She then explains the design, execution and results of her first PA Latin course. Third, she presents and analyzes the qualitative and quantitative evidence from the ethics-approved study on her second patchwork Latin course. She assesses the evidence for how patchwork impacted on students’ motivations, learning processes, levels of engagement, and feelings of inclusion in a 2021 Latin course on Catullus. The study data show that PA can offer a rigorous academic framework that centers learners and generates both inclusivity and equity. As such, PA offers an opportunity to those of us in the Latin teaching community who wish to effectively teach students from a wide range of backgrounds with a wide range of abilities. The Appendices present samples of student work, published with permission, and my rubrics, which can be downloaded and used, or adapted, by all.