“The Vertical Writing Curriculum: Integrating & Aligning Writing Instruction at ECU”
Summary
In response to concerns about students’ performance in upper-division, major-specific Writing Intensive (WI) courses and about their preparedness for writing in the workplace, we propose a multifaceted revision of the Writing Across the Curriculum program, including the first-year composition courses, English 1100 and 1200 (hereafter called the Writing Foundations courses to better reflect their role in the Liberal Arts Foundations Curriculum and in the Writing Across the Curriculum program). More specifically, we suggest increased integration of the University Writing Program and the Writing Foundations Program through professional development for WI faculty and University Writing Center staff, a change in the timing and focus of the second Writing Foundations course (English 1200), and the implementation of portfolio-based writing assessment across Writing Foundations and WI courses.
Student Learning
This QEP promotes effective transfer of student learning in the area of writing through a three-pronged approach that will do the following:
1. Distribute and deliver writing instruction more strategically throughout students’ academic experiences at ECU. Changes to English 1200 would involve shifting the course to the sophomore year and creating disciplinary-themed curricula (e.g., “Writing about the Health Sciences,” “Writing about the Humanities,” “Writing about the Social Sciences,” “Writing about Education,” etc.) that would better enable students to transfer what they learn in English 1100 and 1200 to the writing they do in upper-division courses in their majors. This revised course would also better allow students to see connections between their major areas and the Foundations Curriculum.
2. Increase, through professional development, faculty and tutors’ ability to draw on what students learn about writing in their Writing Foundations courses.
3. Create additional, productive opportunities for students to develop meta-cognitive awareness of what effective writers do. More specifically, the creation of common, portfolio-based assessment procedures for both the Writing Foundations and WI courses will create spaces in which students apply and reflect on writing strategies across contexts and purposes, and thus establish better transfer of learning.
This approach aligns well with all of the strategic directions outlined in ECU Tomorrow. Graduates who can write effectively for a variety of audiences, purposes, and situations will be better prepared to succeed in the global economy, obtain leadership positions, and contribute to the arts, culture, quality of life, healthcare needs, and economic prosperity of Eastern North Carolina and beyond.
Research in the development of writing abilities supports the curricular revisions that we propose. Becoming a better writer requires multiple, consistent opportunities to learn about, practice, and reflect on writing in various contexts and across all levels of the academy (Bergmann Zepernik; Brent; Carroll; Haswell; Herrington & Curtis; McCarthy; Nelms & Dively; Smit; Sternglass; Walvoord & McCarthy; Wardle). As Perkins and Salomon explain, “Practice that occurs in a variety of somewhat related and expanding contexts will force the cognitive element in question to adapt in subtle ways to each of these new contexts, yielding an incrementally broadening ability” (“The Science and Art,” 120). Currently, as we discuss below, this variety of related and expanding contexts for developing writing abilities is lacking at ECU.
Furthermore, the literature suggests that students learn and perform better when they have a stronger investment in their coursework. Student investment requires a belief that the material being covered will be applicable in the future and an interest in the subject matter being researched and written about (Ackerman; Daly; Penrose & Geisler; Sommers). Thus, in shifting the timing and focus of the second Writing Foundations course so that students take it when they are more comfortable with the university and more aware of their plans therein, we are likely to increase student engagement with and retention of the writing strategies they are taught.
The literature on transfer of learning also supports the professional development we envision as part of this QEP. Research suggests that instructors, in order to enable transfer, must frequently and consistently emphasize when and how it can occur (Brent; Carter; Greeno, et. al; Mikulecky, et al; Perkins & Salomon). Strategies for guiding transfer are what we intend to emphasize in workshops and other programs for faculty and tutors.
The portfolio-based assessment structure we propose, and that is elaborated below, is also supported in the literature (Beaufort; Broad; Huot; Huot, O’Neill & Schendel; Smith & Yancey; Wardle; Yancey). We envision an assessment structure in which students, both in their Writing Foundations courses and throughout their WI courses, compile a writing portfolio with several sections, each of which will be framed by reflective cover letters in which students identify, discuss, and evaluate the writing strategies they have employed in their work. Not only will these portfolios provide materials for assessment, but they will also serve as sites for students to develop the kind of meta-cognitive awareness recommended in research on writing-knowledge transfer (Brent; Davies & Birbili; Perkins & Salomon; Nelms & Dively; Tishman, Jay, & Perkins).
In sum, the literature suggests that the proposed changes will positively impact student learning. Best practices in writing instruction, based on this literature, also speak to the effectiveness of integrating writing instruction and systematic reflection on writing practices across all years of a student’s university experience.
Significance and Urgency
Assessment data from the Writing Foundations courses and the WAC Program both suggest the need for a better understanding of writing at the campus level. A “sophomore year writing gap” currently exists between when students take their Writing Foundations courses and when they are asked to transfer what they have learned to upper-level WI courses. Student learning is hampered by this gap. At the same time, the gap—both in terms of timing and curriculum—between the Writing Foundations courses and upper-level WI courses reinforces the unfortunate but common perception among students that there is little value to what they learn in the Writing Foundations courses beyond satisfying a university requirement. Our current curricular structure, in other words, does not provide students with a clear means to see how the ability to write critically and effectively for a broad audience can serve as a foundation for the ability to write effectively for more specialized audiences. Nor does this current curriculum demonstrate clearly for students how important it is for specialists to be able to communicate effectively with one another and with broader audiences. In response, we propose to revise English 1200 so that it becomes a space where students can consider, compare, contrast, and even critique the habits of thinking and ways of writing within specialized fields. In addition to fostering dispositions toward research-based writing that students might take into their upper-level WI courses, this revised English 1200 might serve as a location where students can explore the complexities of how specialized knowledge gets transmitted to broader national and international audiences.
In addition to anecdotal evidence from faculty across the curriculum who report with regularity that their students are not strong writers, a recent assessment of ENGL 1200 demonstrated that students, while improving in several areas involving the use of secondary research in their writing, struggled significantly with paraphrasing sources, even at the conclusion of the course. There are several possible reasons for this unsatisfactory performance, but one reason suggested by research in the composing processes of novice and experienced writers is that students new to the university are accustomed to viewing sources as things to be reported on rather than as things to be questioned, refuted and/or used as support for one’s own argument (Penrose and Geisler; Sommer & Salz; Herrington & Curtis). Not until students have some more experience with academic and disciplinary conversations can they begin to see how to use information and perspectives from sources. Shifting ENGL 1200 to the sophomore year, and creating curricula that take up disciplinary conversations, is one way that the Writing Foundations courses can facilitate this move from novice to experienced writer.
Furthermore, the Writing Intensive Course Report compiled by the University Writing Program noted that faculty understandings of “good writing” vary significantly by department and college, suggesting that there is little sense of consistency among faculty regarding expectations in writing and writing-intensive courses. This lack of consistency is appropriate given the different contexts and purposes of writing, but it can be confusing to students if these differences are not carefully and meaningfully articulated. In fact, students surveyed noted their own perception that “good writing” is “good writing” across contexts, which suggests a lack of awareness that audience, purpose, and context all contribute to making writing effective in a given situation. Recent assessments of writing intensive courses in the WAC program also demonstrate that a Kurtosis risk exists in these courses, e.g., the median GPA across all sections of WI courses from fall 2007 - fall 2009 is 3.2. This suggests that despite faculty perception that students are weak writers, their WI course grades do not demonstrate (or perhaps address) that weakness. These assessments suggest that WI faculty would benefit from professional development that explore these issues and provide methods for better articulating writing outcomes and objectives in WI courses.
Description and Scope
The QEP we propose includes the following major tasks:
1. Hold meetings among WI instructors, University Writing Program staff, the Director of Writing Foundations, and Writing Foundations instructors to help WI instructors better understand what students are prepared to do upon completion of the Foundations courses.
2. Shift the timing of English 1200 so that students take the course after they have completed 30 semester hours.
3. Develop disciplinary themes for English 1200 and train faculty to teach them.
4. Conduct professional development programs for instructors of upper-level WI courses and tutors at the University Writing Center in order to foster instructional practices that promote transfer of learning. The University Writing Program and the Office for Faculty Excellence could collaborate in the design and implementation of these programs.
5. Design and implement portfolio-based assessment procedures in the Writing Foundations courses and throughout WI courses.
Given ECU’s Writing Foundations and WI course requirements, this QEP would affect every student who earns a degree from the university. The Composition Committee from the Department of English, along with the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Committee, will coordinate with all of the departments. All departments would be involved in some capacity as each offers WI courses. Because the proposed changes would require revision to the Foundations Curriculum, the Academic Standards Committee and the Faculty Senate would also participate in the proposed QEP. Thus, a wide cross-section of faculty would be involved. We also see faculty from Academic Library Services as critical to this QEP, and they have contributed to this proposal some ideas for the design, implementation, and assessment of library instruction for disciplinary-themed English 1200s (see appendices).
Assessment
Key to the success of this QEP would be both formative and summative assessments which would analyze the teaching of writing across campus as well as the effectiveness of that instruction on student writing itself. In the recent past, the Writing Foundations courses have been assessed annually through the review of student writing samples, gathered from randomly selected sections of each course, or through end-of-semester quizzes, and the WAC program has focused its assessment practices primarily on faculty development and direct services for students through the University Writing Center. Research has repeatedly demonstrated, however, that portfolios provide a richer context for assessment of student writing abilities than do these other mechanisms. Portfolios, the literature suggests, provide more reliable data for assessing students’ writing abilities than do timed writing tests or final writing assignments from a particular class. It is across multiple contexts that a writer’s abilities are more effectively demonstrated (Beaufort; Broad; Huot; Huot, O’Neill & Schendel; Rutz & Grawe; Smith & Yancey; Thomas; Yancey). For this reason, other UNC system schools and many of ECU’s peer institutions use a portfolio system for writing program assessment (Appalachian State, Western Carolina University, Florida International University, Northern Illinois University, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, University of Louisville, and SUNY Buffalo). In addition, it is for this reason that the National Council of Teachers of English provides a list of 25 composition e-portfolio models at schools around the country (http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/electronicportfolios.).
In addition to the more reliable data that can be gathered through portfolio-based formative assessment, the Writing Foundations curriculum and the WI curriculum can achieve more effective vertical alignment through such assessment. The primary means for achieving this alignment will be the development of a University Writing Portfolio (using iwebfolio) for all ECU students.
The University Writing Portfolio, for students who enter the university as first-semester, first-year students, will include the following writing artifacts:
1. Items from the freshman year: Each student in English 1100 will submit selected materials from 1100 at the end of the course. Instructors of English 1100 will require that students submit this material as part of their coursework, most likely as the final, graded assignment in the course. This portfolio will include written assignments from the course that, in the student’s opinion, best demonstrate her or his ability to meet the program-wide outcomes of the course, which are listed on each instructor’s syllabus and which inform the portfolio rubrics for each class (see appendices). In addition, each portfolio will be accompanied by a brief analytical cover letter in which the student explains the writing strategies he or she used in the materials. This cover letter will be used to determine how aware students are of their choices and abilities as writers (see a sample rubric in the appendices). As explained above, such meta-awareness enables the transfer of writing abilities to new contexts.
2. Items from the sophomore year: Each student in English 1200 will submit selected materials from 1200 at the end of the course. These items will be selected by the students and submitted in a manner similar to that used in selecting the material for inclusion in the first year. The materials will also be accompanied by a brief, analytical cover letter.
3. Items from the junior and/or senior year: Methods for identifying and gathering materials from upper-level WI courses will be developed by the WAC committee in conjunction with the QEP Director and the QEP Council.