Curriculum Makeover: An Assessment
Work in Progress
Presented by Roxanne Munch
March 5, 2010
1
Overview, Part 1
• Spinning our Wheels
• Discoveries
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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?
2
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.
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Discoveries
• What must a CI 901R course really teach? According to
www.itransfer.org, the writing sequence:
1.
2.
3.
4.
•
Develops awareness of the writing process,
Provides inventional, organizational and editorial strategies,
Stresses the variety of uses for writing,
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 . . .
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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:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Summary
Summary/Response
Analysis/C-C
Synthesis/C-E
Argument
English 102:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Fiction Paper
Novel Paper
Research Paper
Poetry Paper
Drama Paper
The Road Map
Sequencing the Writing Assignments—The Latest Version
English 101:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Summary
Summary/Response
Analysis/C-C
Synthesis/C-E
Argument
English 102:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Analysis of “Text”/Multimedia
Evaluation of Longer Work
Proposal for Research Paper
Research Paper
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
Workshop #1:
October 17
PURPOSE
ASSESSMENT MEASURES
•Determine needs to support
instruction.
•Compiled list of recommended
supplemental paperbacks.
•Discuss preliminary
reactions to Field Guide.
•Brainstormed notes.
•Begin designing rubric for
research paper.
•Rubric—to be implemented in
Spring 2010.
The Road Map: Saturday
Workshops
FALL 2009
ACTIVITY
Workshop #2:
November 14
PURPOSE
ASSESSMENT MEASURES
•Prepare surveys on Field Guide •Satisfaction surveys of
of instructors and students.
instructors.
•Discuss successes and
opportunities with assignments
and syllabus.
•Satisfaction surveys of students.
•Revised syllabus for January
2010.
The Road Map: Saturday
Workshops
FALL 2009
ACTIVITY
Workshop #3:
December 12
PURPOSE
ASSESSMENT MEASURES
•Review surveys of students
and instructors.
•Rubric completed and ready to
implement.
•Finalize rubric for research
paper.
•Data on successful completion of
research paper and course (not
complete).
•Finalize bibliography of
paperbacks and create a
system for updates.
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, Chair
English/World Languages Department
Joliet Junior College
1215 Houbolt Avenue
Joliet, IL 60434
rmunch@jjc.edu
1-815-280-6663
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