Assessment of an Integrated Writing Assignment for a Learning Community: English 101
The learning community this term initially consisted of 24 students enrolled in both a section of
MA120 (Dr. Joseph Bertorelli) and my section of EN101 during Spring 2010. The attached
assignments and rubric were for an assignment in response to Marc Haddon’s The Curious
Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a mystery novel about a boy with autism and a gift for
mathematics. Given that the other major texts in the course were both nonfiction (Jacob Riis’
How the Other Half Lives and Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed), this text and its
corresponding writing assignment allowed students to reflect on the way mathematics involves
making sense of the world, much as any language does, while challenging them to respond to a
work of fiction as they will in their second required writing course, EN 102.
By the time I collected this assignment, 18 students were regularly attending class, and all of
them turned in a completed draft of their paper, which I graded using the rubric. According to
the course policies I had in place from the start of the term, students were given the option of
doing an additional revision and earning a higher grade; 8 students took this opportunity and
turned in a second draft. I again used the rubric we had developed to grade these revised drafts.
Given that I only received 8 revised drafts, most of the students were obviously satisfied with
their grade, though many received C’s with work that was minimally satisfactory and competent
in the qualities we had outlined together and which corresponded to the learning objectives of the
course.
Since the students who revised their initial drafts were a self-selecting group, the results of the
second rubric reflect the structure of the course and individual motivational levels. Most of the 8
students who turned in a second draft were highly motivated, and thus it was not surprising that
they generally scored higher on the rubric grid and received higher grades. One student,
however, turned in the identical draft a second time and received the same failing grade.
Another student who also received a failing grade on the first draft did not bother to revise his
work.
I gave this same assignment with the same rubric the previous term, and all 24 students who
enrolled in that course received a passing grade on this paper and in the course as a whole. With
every assignment, including this one, at least 75% of those students took the opportunity to
revise and improve their work. In that EN 101 LC course last semester, the majority of the
students had enrolled in early June, three months before the semester began. In the course this
term, only 8 of the 24 students were enrolled five days before the term started; in other words, 16
students enrolled in the last week before the semester began or after the semester had begun.
This difference, I suspect, accounts for the difference in students, and hence the different scores
on the rubric, the different grades, and the different number of students revising their work.
English101 LearningCommunitywithMA120
Rubric:Paper3
Dr.DavidHumphries
8PapersCollectedBeginning4/22/2010
Competency
Punctuation/
Spelling/
Grammar/
Formatting
(15points
possible)
Structure/Well‐
organized/
Introduceideas/
Concludeideas/
Sticktotopic
(30points
possible)
Minimalerrors/
Noformatting
issues
3students
Evidence/
Details
supportingmain
idea/Quotations
citedproperly
(30points
possible)
Min.3
quotations/
Properly
integrated/
Analyzed/Cited
/Necessary
summarizing/
Mainideawell
supported
6students
Ontopic/
Demonstrate
reading,
understandingof
book/Useterms
ofwriting
prompt/Shared
vocabulary
(25points
possible)
Topicaddressed
directly
throughout/
Thorough
readingoftext
demonstrated/
Termsand
vocabularyused
properly
3students
Cohesive
Introduction/
Cohesive
Conclusion/
Logical,Focused
Development
2students
Fewminorerrors
/Fewformatting
issues
3students
SomeErrors/
Someformatting
issues/No
interferencewith
generalmeaning
1students
Introductiongives Introductiongives
generalideaof
someideaofmain
mainpoint/
point/Conclusion
Conclusion
relatedtomain
generally
points/Most
connectsmain
paragraphs
points/Most
organizedand
paragraphs
relatedtomain
logically
topic
organizedand
1students
developmain
point
4students
2quotations/
Somequotations/
Properly
Mostlywell
integrated/
integrated/
Analyzed/Cited/ Analyzed/Cited/
Mostnecessary
Somenecessary
information
information
summarized/
summarized/Main
Mainideamostly ideasomewhatwell
wellsupported
supported
1student
Topicgenerally
Topicmostly
addressed
addressed
throughout/
throughout/Fairly
Fairlythorough
thoroughreadingof
readingoftext
partsofthetext/
demonstrated/
Sporadicuseofkey
Someuseofkey
terms
termsthroughout 4students
Someerrors/
Someformatting
issues/Some
interferencewith
generalmeaning
Introduction/
Conclusiontouch
onmainideas/
Someparagraphs
wellorganizedand
relatedtomain
topic
Errorsand
Formatting
Issues/
Interference
withgeneral
meaning
1student
Introduction,
Conclusionnot
indicativeof
mainideas/
Nological
development/
Notall
information
relatedtomain
topic
1student
Minimalquotations
/Notwell
integrated/
Minimal
information
summarized/Main
ideaminimally
supported
1student
Noquotations
/Little
information
summarized/
Littlesupport
formainidea
Topicaddressedat
times/Some
readingsofpartsof
thetext/Minimal
useofkeyterms
Topiconly
rarely
addressed/
Fewreadingof
thepartsofthe
text/Minimal
tonouseofkey
terms
1student
English101 LearningCommunitywithMA120
Dr.DavidHumphries
19PapersCollected 4/13/2010
Competency
Punctuation/
Spelling/
Grammar/
Formatting
(15points
possible)
Structure/Well‐
organized/
Introduceideas/
Concludeideas/
Sticktotopic
(30points
possible)
Minimalerrors/
Noformatting
issues
2students
Evidence/
Details
supportingmain
idea/Quotations
citedproperly
(30points
possible)
Min.3
quotations/
Properly
integrated/
Analyzed/Cited
/Necessary
summarizing/
Mainideawell
supported
3students
Ontopic/
Demonstrate
reading,
understandingof
book/Useterms
ofwriting
prompt/Shared
vocabulary
(25points
possible)
Topicaddressed
directly
throughout/
Thorough
readingoftext
demonstrated/
Termsand
vocabularyused
properly
2students
Cohesive
Introduction/
Cohesive
Conclusion/
Logical,Focused
Development
4students
Fewminorerrors
/Fewformatting
issues
9students
SomeErrors/
Someformatting
issues/No
interferencewith
generalmeaning
7students
Introductiongives Introductiongives
generalideaof
someideaofmain
mainpoint/
point/Conclusion
Conclusion
relatedtomain
generally
points/Most
connectsmain
paragraphs
points/Most
organizedand
paragraphs
relatedtomain
logically
topic
organizedand
5students
developmain
point
8students
2quotations/
Somequotations/
Properly
Mostlywell
integrated/
integrated/
Analyzed/Cited/ Analyzed/Cited/
Mostnecessary
Somenecessary
information
information
summarized/
summarized/Main
Mainideamostly ideasomewhatwell
wellsupported
supported
7students
6students
Topicgenerally
Topicmostly
addressed
addressed
throughout/
throughout/Fairly
Fairlythorough
thoroughreadingof
readingoftext
partsofthetext/
demonstrated/
Sporadicuseofkey
Someuseofkey
terms
termsthroughout 5students
10students
Rubric:Paper3
Someerrors/
Someformatting
issues/Some
interferencewith
generalmeaning
Introduction/
Conclusiontouch
onmainideas/
Someparagraphs
wellorganizedand
relatedtomain
topic
1student
Errorsand
Formatting
Issues/
Interference
withgeneral
meaning
1student
Introduction,
Conclusionnot
indicativeof
mainideas/
Nological
development/
Notall
information
relatedtomain
topic
1student
Minimalquotations
/Notwell
integrated/
Minimal
information
summarized/Main
ideaminimally
supported
3students
Noquotations
/Little
information
summarized/
Littlesupport
formainidea
Topicaddressedat
times/Some
readingsofpartsof
thetext/Minimal
useofkeyterms
Topiconly
rarely
addressed/
Fewreadingof
thepartsofthe
text/Minimal
tonouseofkey
terms
1student