Curriculum Makeover: An Assessment Work in Progress Presented by Roxanne Munch March 5, 2010 1.

Curriculum Makeover: An Assessment Work in Progress

Presented by Roxanne MunchMarch 5, 2010

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Overview, Part 1

• Spinning our Wheels• Discoveries– What must a CI 901R course really teach?– Have we looked at our learning outcomes lately?– Do we practice what we preach?– Do we teach what students need?– Can we just let go of Jane Eyre?

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Overview, Part 2

• The Road Map– Sequencing the writing assignments.– Armed with a syllabus and a textbook, we

venture forth.– Saturday Workshops: Fall 2009

• The Detours– A rubric is only as good as its users.– Have we looked at the research lately?

• The Destination, or Why I Now Believe in Xeno’s Paradox

Spinning Our Wheels

• The Course: English 102– Second course in the composition sequence at JJC; the CI

901R course.– Literature-based for at least 35 years.

• The Problems: Obstacles to the Writing Focus– Two courses in one: an intro to literature and a research

paper course.– A disconnect with the writing assignment sequence of

English 101.– An illogical leap in course content from English 101 to

English 102.– The message from transfer institutions that a literature-

based composition course was not desirable.– Poor course retention and completion rates.

Discoveries

• What must a CI 901R course really teach? According to www.itransfer.org, the writing sequence:1. Develops awareness of the writing process,2. Provides inventional, organizational and editorial

strategies,3. Stresses the variety of uses for writing,4. Emphasizes critical thinking skills in reading, thinking and

writing.

• The course sequence must include production of documented, multi-source writing for a combined total of 2500 words in the final version.

Discoveries

Have we looked at our learning outcomes lately?•The IAI lists nine.•Our Guide to Learning for English 101 and 102 lists nine—we copied them! (P.S. we documented our source).•No reading content is ever identified.•Note the patterns!

“…a variety of texts…various strategies…understanding of rhetorical context…voice appropriate…satisfy expectations of readers…control over the conventions…recognize the existence of discourse communities with their different conventions and forms.”

Discoveries

• Do we practice what we preach?– Adjunct instructors . . .

• Used a large anthology of literature• Were expected to assign 4 papers on literary genre• Were asked to pick a “classic” novel from among critical editions• Were expected to assign a research paper that was a literary analysis

of the novel

– Full-time instructors . . .• Chose a range of literature and non-fiction• May use the literature for themes and ideas, but research papers were

rarely literary analysis• Insisted that the adjuncts keep using the anthology and syllabus!

Discoveries

• Do we teach what students need?– Department chairs were asked about preferences and

requirements for documentation.• APA-style was preferred more often than MLA.• Some instructors were willing to accept anything.• An uptick in APA was noted when it became the default

setting for documentation in Word 2007.

– The Writing Center indicated a need for instruction in both MLA and APA.

– The English faculty taught MLA only and rarely mentioned other documentation styles.

Discoveries

• Can we just let go of Jane Eyre?– Our content comfort zone is

literature.– The Ancients vs. the Moderns—

Does academic writing require “classics”?

– The convenience of critical editions for teaching research.

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The Road Map

Sequencing the Writing Assignments—The Old Way

English 101: English 102:1. Summary 1. Fiction Paper2. Summary/Response 2. Novel Paper3. Analysis/C-C 3. Research Paper4. Synthesis/C-E 4. Poetry Paper5. Argument 5. Drama Paper

The Road Map

Sequencing the Writing Assignments—The Latest Version

English 101: English 102:1. Summary 1. Analysis of

“Text”/Multimedia2. Summary/Response 2. Evaluation of Longer Work3. Analysis/C-C 3. Proposal for Research

Paper4. Synthesis/C-E 4. Research Paper5. Argument 5. Presentation/Self-

Assessment

The Road Map

• Armed with a syllabus and a textbook, we venture forth…– We say good-bye to the anthology

of literature– We review a whole new kind of text

for us—the rhetoric– We adopt The Norton Field Guide to

Writing with Readings

The Road Map: Saturday Workshops

Fall 2009

ACTIVITY PURPOSE ASSESSMENT MEASURES

Workshop #1: October 17

•Determine needs to support instruction.

•Discuss preliminary reactions to Field Guide.

•Begin designing rubric for research paper.

•Compiled list of recommended supplemental paperbacks.

•Brainstormed notes.

•Rubric—to be implemented in Spring 2010.

The Road Map: Saturday Workshops

FALL 2009

ACTIVITY PURPOSE ASSESSMENT MEASURES

Workshop #2: November 14

•Prepare surveys on Field Guide of instructors and students.

•Discuss successes and opportunities with assignments and syllabus.

•Satisfaction surveys of instructors.

•Satisfaction surveys of students.

•Revised syllabus for January 2010.

The Road Map: Saturday Workshops

FALL 2009

ACTIVITY PURPOSE ASSESSMENT MEASURES

Workshop #3: December 12

•Review surveys of students and instructors.

•Finalize rubric for research paper.

•Finalize bibliography of paperbacks and create a system for updates.

•Rubric completed and ready to implement.

•Data on successful completion of research paper and course (not complete).

The Detours

• A rubric is only as good as its users– The chair regularly collects samples of graded work from

adjuncts each semester.– Many problems in the assessment of student work are

apparent:• Notations are not consistent with the handbook and standard

editing abbreviations.• Errors in identifying grammar mistakes are frequent.• Many items are simply missed.• Rhetorical comments do not provide direction for

improvement—e.g., “weak,” “awk,” “wrong word,” “unclear.”

The Detours

Have you looked at the research lately?

“[T]eachers do not seem to mark as many errors as we often think they do. On average, college English teachers mark only 43% of the most serious errors in the papers they evaluate” (Connors and Lunsford).

The Detours

Have you looked at the research lately, part 2?

– Spring 2010 Workshops are focusing on effective evaluation of papers.

– Bedford/St. Martin’s provided free copies of From Theory to Practice: A Selection of Essays. We’re doing our homework!

– The Instructors’ Manual for the Norton Field Guide to Writing is an excellent (and free!) companion resource focused on teaching writing.

The Detours

• Just when we thought we knew what we were doing . . .

• The earlier research “showed us clearly how teachers’ ideas about error definition and classification have always been absolute products of their times and cultures. . . . Error-pattern study is essentially the examination of an ever-shifting pattern of skills judged by an ever-shifting pattern of prejudices” (Connors and Lunsford 9).

The Destination

I wish I had said this!

“As Mina Shaughnessy put it, errors are ‘unintentional and unprofitable intrusions upon the consciousness of the reader. . . . They demand energy without giving back any return in meaning’ (12)” (qtd. in Connors and Lunsford 6).

The Destination

Or why I now believe in Xeno’s Paradox!

“ That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal. ” —Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b10

Contact Information

Roxanne Munch, ChairEnglish/World Languages Department

Joliet Junior College1215 Houbolt Avenue

Joliet, IL [email protected]

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