INTD 105 Writing Seminar

Program Review

June 11, 2007

Submitted to

Dr. Susan Bailey, Dean of the College

Celia A. Easton, Chair

Critical Writing and Reading Core Committee

INTRODUCTION

INTD 105 Writing Seminar (subtitle) has been a Critical Writing and Reading Core requirement for SUNY Geneseo students since Fall 2000. The learning outcomes for the course have been articulated from the start: 1) The ability to read significant texts carefully and critically, recognizing and responding to argumentative positions; 2) The ability to write sustained, coherent, and persuasive arguments on significant issues that arise from the content at hand; and 3) The ability to write clearly, following the conventions of Standard English.

INTD 105 was never intended as a remediation course. Its model is the Geneseo Honors Program Critical Reading course (HONR 102) and it mirrors Cornell University's writing seminars. From its beginnings, it has been a course taught by faculty across disciplines. The pedagogical purpose of Writing Across Disciplines is to expose students to the importance of writing in all areas of study, for the manner in which writers express their ideas in Geography and Chemistry is as important as their composition competency in English and History. In practical terms, the staffing of INTD 105 was brought about by reassigning faculty who taught in the previous core area, Critical Reasoning, by merging sections of undersubscribed Social Science core classes, and by requesting token participation in the program by the School of Business and disciplines in the Natural Sciences.

The premise of Writing Instruction Across the Curriculum is that all faculty are writers and can model writing for students. Writing assessment in INTD 105 emphasizes how well students can construct and defend an argument, logically and elegantly. Although disciplinary conventions vary, all faculty members know how to discuss with students the importance of supporting claims with assertions, the reason scholars cite sources following conventional styles, and the necessity of thoughtful planning as well as careful revision. As one faculty survey respondent noted with gentle cynicism, "Anyone unable to teach 105 competently shouldn't be a faculty member in the first place." The alternative to WIAC has traditionally been Writing Instruction in the English Department. Although most English faculty teach writing as graduate students and enjoy talking about writing because they are active writers themselves, there is currently no English department faculty member who has scholarly training in Composition and Rhetoric. There is no reason to assume that a Melville or Chaucer scholar is any better qualified to teach writing than a Geography professor who studies weather events or a Biology professor who studies flagella.

The reason students learn to polish their writing in college is not simply to be able to write successful college papers but to be effective communicators in their own personal and professional lives. For this reason, INTD 105 emphasizes both "invention" and "revision." Students must complete six distinct assignments. At least four and at most five must be unique topics—this is the "invention" part. At least one and at most two must be "significant revisions"—thoughtful rethinking of essays, not just fixing marked errors. Most sections include revision of some kind (often after peer-editing sessions) for all papers. The specific "revision" assignment should emphasize distinct ways of thinking about expressing ideas better with more precise research and greater fluency.

Throughout the years, program assessment has affirmed that Geneseo students are competent writers who do not need writing remediation but do need exposure to the expectations of college-level writing as they transition from high school essay writing to independent critical thinking.

2007 ATTITUDES TOWARD STUDENT WRITING SKILLS AND INTD 105

In May 2007, fifty faculty members responded to a survey asking them to assist in this review of INTD 105. Forty-one (82%) identified themselves as full-time faculty. Twenty-four had taught the course; twenty-six had not. From a faculty perspective, most Geneseo students write competently, but they do not understand disciplinary conventions, they do not incorporate research well into their writing, and many still need significant help with grammar and mechanics. Fewer than a third of the faculty agreed that students read critically. Most disagreed that students demonstrated competent research skills in their first and second years of study, but 54% claimed that students' research skills were competent by their third and fourth years. It is important to note that the responders were self-selected, some very eager to defend the importance of the course and some critical of it. The responses to the survey may be found in the appendix to this report. The summary statements in this narrative are paraphrased and condensed, except for those that appear in quotation marks.

The following statements highlight the ways faculty who responded to the survey believe INTD 105 contributes to Geneseo students' academic achievement:

INTD 105 emphasizes the importance of writing to students early in their career.
INTD 105 provides a place for ensuring that all students write competently or receive needed help.
Since the inception of INTD 105, there has been an increase in the ability of students to write at an adequate level.
INTD 105 introduces students to library resources.
INTD 105 helps students improve their writing and grades in subsequent courses, including Humanities.
INTD 105 provides a good "first-year student experience."
Since the inception of INTD 105, more students understand what is expected from a college-level paper.

The following statements highlight faculty misgivings about INTD 105's contributions to Geneseo students' academic achievement:

INTD 105's success varies depending on the faculty teaching the course.
There isn't enough uniformity to provide a common experience.
First and second year students lack basic writing skills in both mechanics and organization.
There has been no significant change in students' writing skills since the inception of INTD 105.
The course should be more focused on writing than on content.
Some students fall through the cracks.
I've been disappointed with upper-level students' critical writing, grammar, citations, etc., and I'm often thinking, "Didn't you at least learn this in INTD 105?"

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINING THE LEARNING OUTCOMES

The survey asked faculty to respond to INTD 105's learning outcomes with suggestions for changes to the course that would contribute to the outcomes. The following statements summarize the faculty observations:

Keep enrollments as low as possible.
Increase consistency across sections.
Teach editing and revision, including an emphasis on grammar and mechanics.
Work closely with adjunct faculty.
Make sure the assigned reading texts are "significant."
Screen students and exempt well prepared students from the course.

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

The survey asked faculty about the importance of faculty workshops, training, and additional support for course development. Faculty responded with the following suggestions:

Direct faculty to a single "Writing Resources" site such as Dr. Schacht's Writing Guide.
Continue to give workshops—at least three days long.
In addition to training, demand that all faculty make a commitment to the intended rigor of the course.
Have new faculty attend "debriefing" sessions with experienced faculty.
Have the English department teach all sections of INTD 105.
Create a common core of assignments and rubrics within the course.
Give faculty more autonomy.
Teach grammar to faculty.
Expose faculty to recent theories on the teaching of writing.
If it is necessary to hire adjuncts to teach INTD 105, make a long-term commitment to the adjuncts at "reasonable salaries" to raise the status of INTD 105.

STAFFING CONCERNS

In the "additional comments" section of the survey, faculty made the following observations about staffing the course. Most of the staffing concerns reflect issues raised during Senate discussions when INTD 105 was initially instituted: some faculty disagree with the premises of "Writing Instruction Across the Curriculum," and some faculty are concerned that their resources have been diverted from serving their majors.

INTD 105 is very challenging to teach, especially for faculty who did not previously participate in the Critical Reasoning core.
It is unfair to staff the course with adjuncts. We need to devote more full-time resources to the course.
The course is a hardship for departments with large numbers of majors. "We are forced to supply instructors for the course, and (because we are not in the Humanities) we see little benefit for our majors. As a result it is harder to staff courses in the major."
"Departments already have too many demands on their time to teach this course. The faculty time used for these courses is better used teaching courses in their own departments."
"While I appreciate the idea behind INTD 105, it troubles me greatly that we have what is essentially a comp course (based on the learning outcomes) taught (in many cases) by non-English faculty.
"INTD 105 instructors should come from a representative cross-section of disciplines and interests. This will ensure not only a breadth of expertise in professional writing, but also signal to the students the importance the College places on the course."

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

General recommendations from faculty addressed class size, course consistency, and library resources.

INTD 105 will be more effective if it is kept to seminar size (several suggestions of fifteen students, or twenty maximum).
INTD 105 is a great course but it lacks homogeneity. Faculty are surprised when some seniors demonstrate poor writing skills.
Transfer students have the most difficulty with writing at Geneseo and their needs may not be addressed by INTD 105.
The course needs to emphasize source citation more carefully and consistently.
Milne 105 (the dedicated classroom for some sections of INTD 105) is an excellent space for teaching this course.
Sessions offered by the Milne librarians on library resources, research skills, and plagiarism make significant contributions to INTD 105.
Students could use technology like wikis to do peer review of each other's work.
INTD 105 might be offered with subject-interest topics for students in particular majors.

INFORMATION ON FULL TIME AND PART TIME INSTRUCTION

One member of the Critical Writing and Reading Core Committee constructed the following table, indicating the number of adjunct instructors teaching INTD 105 since Fall 2000. These numbers are based on published Master Schedules and may not be completely accurate since sections are sometimes added and staffing may change after Master Schedules are published. Fluctuation in the percentage of sections of INTD 105 taught by adjuncts may reflect increases in adjuncts in individual departments because of unfilled lines after faculty retire, adjuncts replacing full time positions during sabbaticals, and adjuncts replacing full time faculty fulfilling administrative duties or teaching courses in Women's Studies, American Studies, College Honors, etc. Nevertheless, as the number approaches 50%, the College must consider these consequences of adjuncts teaching INTD 105:

Frequent turnover of instructors and inconsistent preparation for teaching the course. This also affects students whose INTD 105 section is their only "small class"; they may find their instructor gone when they want recommendations or even conversation in subsequent years.
Infrequent office hours (an adjunct teaching one three-hour course might be available only one hour a week to see students).
Lack of familiarity with the wider Geneseo curriculum.
The potential "ghettoization" of writing instruction.

Semester / Ratio of Adjunct/Total # of Sections / Percentage Adjuncts
Fall 2000 / 1/27 / 3.7%
Spring 2001 / 4/30 / 13.33%
Fall 2001 / 4/31 / 12.9%
Spring 2002 / 6/23 / 26.1%
Fall 2002 / 5/26 / 19.23%
Spring 2003 / 9/23 / 39.13%
Fall 2003 / 5/25 / 20%
Spring 2004 / 7/22 / 31.8%
Fall 2004 / 5/22 / 22.7%
Spring 2005 / 9/25 / 36.%
Fall 2005 / 6/25 / 24%
Spring 2006 / 8/25 / 32%
Fall 2006 / 9/25 / 36%
Spring 2007 / 12/27 / 44.44%
Fall 2007 / 12/26 / 46.15%

SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS BY THE CHAIR OF THE CRITICAL WRITING AND READING CORE COMMITTEE

Although there is a general consensus that INTD 105 Writing Seminar (subtitle) is an important part of Geneseo's General Education Core, the contradictory observations and suggestions expressed in the May 2007 faculty survey indicate that the College does not speak in one voice about the Critical Writing and Reading Core. While it would be easy for the members of the Critical Writing and Reading Core Committee to dismiss remarks that question Writing Instruction Across the Curriculum, such comments can be instructive. We must also be cautious about generating antagonism lest faculty who disapprove of the Core area (as we have seen with Humanities) treat it derisively in advising sessions with students.

Questions about WIAC suggest that we need to expand conversations throughout the College about what it means to expect students to write well: it is not about grammar, mechanics, and citation styles, although those surface concerns do affect readers' responses to essays. Instead, good writing reflects critical and logical thinking about significant topics, well considered expression, and the thoughtful inclusion of evidence. When non-INTD 105 instructors describe the writing of upper-level students, they should be thinking in these terms, as well.

The faculty comment that called for more commitment to the course by both full time and part time faculty is important, but this will not occur if the course is considered too burdensome. During the initial Senate discussions, I described the trade-off in time offered by INTD 105: instructors have a heavier grading and responding responsibility than most courses require, but the prep time is much lighter, especially after instructors have taught the course at least once. Smaller class sizes benefit students because they receive more attention, but they also decrease professors' grading burdens. In recent years, class size has been kept to 22 (below the "legal" limit of 25). While many colleges offer writing seminars with enrollments of 15-18, this does not seem immediately practical for Geneseo. Nevertheless, we might reasonably begin to aim for INTD 105 enrollments to cap at 20.

The multiple faculty comments about inconsistency across sections of the course identify the aspect of INTD 105 that the College must try to address right away. These comments are complemented by anecdotes from students, who compare their classes and their course requirements. During the Spring 2007 semester, I asked one of my graduating seniors who also worked as a tutor in the Writing Learning Center about her experiences taking INTD 105 and tutoring INTD 105 students. Her INTD 105 course was taught by a social scientist, and while she enjoyed the content, she felt there was a paucity of writing instruction. She thought students would benefit more from emphasis on editing and revision.

It is nearly impossible to ensure that the Guidelines for INTD 105 are met consistently. The last Guideline makes this the responsibility of department chairs and the Dean of the College's office, but department chairs have never questioned syllabi or reported on the seriousness of writing instruction in INTD 105 courses. This College respects professorial autonomy and should continue to do so, but we must also face the truth that students are not receiving the same benefit from INTD 105 in every section of the course.

One approach to coordinating the curriculum and emphasizing editing and revision would be to establish a writing instruction "skeleton" on the Angel Learning Management System to be shared by all sections of INTD 105. Instructors would continue to choose the reading texts and topics for individual sections of the course, but would agree to follow a coordinated writing curriculum that reviewed organization, argumentation, research, editing, style, citations, plagiarism, etc. The disadvantage of such a curriculum is that it can become reductive ("Okay, let's get through this") and it can cut into instructor autonomy. But it might be welcomed by faculty who are eager to interact with first-year students on interesting topics but lack confidence in their knowledge of composition pedagogy. It would also help to coordinate sections of the course taught by adjuncts and new faculty who do not participate in the faculty workshop.

Another variation on INTD 105 that might appeal to some faculty would allow some sections of INTD 105 to be attached to other courses routinely taken by first year students. So, for example, twenty students enrolled in ANTH 100, SOCL 103, or CHEM 103 would also enroll in a section of INTD 105 whose writing assignments and additional readings complemented the readings students were doing in those courses. The INTD 105 instructor might be the ANTH 100 instructor, or another instructor might attend the ANTH 100 lectures with the students and extend the conversations from that course into the INTD 105 seminar. If adjuncts were employed for such sections, they would benefit from a greater understanding of the Geneseo curriculum and other contexts in which students write; they'd be able to make connections with another faculty member, something adjuncts often cannot do; and an argument could be made that their extra contact hours entitled them to an increase in adjunct wages, making the course more attractive to teach more than once.