ASCRC Writing Committee Minutes, 12/8/11
Members Present: B. Chin, C. Corr, L. Franklin, R. Sattler, M. Semanoff, M. Stark
Ex-Officio Members Present: S. Edwards, E. Johnson, A. Kinch, A. Ratto-Parks, K. Webster
Members Absent/Excused: G. Burns, D. Simpson
The meeting was called to order at 8:12 p.m.
The minutes from 11/9/11 were approved
Communication Item:

Associate Provost Walker-Andrews was welcomed to the meeting.
Business Items

The Committee discussed the Writing Assessment Pilot with Associate Provost WalkerAndrews. The Pilot will determine whether this type of assessment is logistically feasible. If
the project seems sustainable then the administration will look at eliminating the UDWPA and
the redirect those resources. The intent is to learn and fine tune assessment efforts to ultimately
improve students’ writing. The first phase should determine whether faculty have an
understanding of what writing courses should require of students. WRIT 101 is not included in
the Pilot because assessment is currently in place. The second phase involves several stages: 1)
student papers/ assignment collection and storage in Moodle, 2) random selection of students’
work and post to a new Moodle site, 3) develop tools / rubric for assessment, 4) apply rubric to
student papers, and 5) detailed analysis of data. The first Moodle site will be live this week.
Coordinating the work this spring requires some thought now that Steve Edwards has resigned.
The committee emphasized the importance of training for the scorers. History, Geography and
Social Work have agreed to participate and are working on creating an analytic rubric this
semester. Next semester the rubric will be applied to a capstone assignment. Economics and
Chemistry are considering. If sustainable, the assessment will rotate through the various
programs (43-46 departments).
Northwest Accreditation is concerned with integrated assessment in terms of what the
university is doing for assessment and how changes have been made based on the results.
Assessment includes accountability as well as identifying areas that need improving to better
serve students.
Chair Chin inquired whether the rubric at the first and second phase should be holistic or
analytic. A pie judge analogy was provided. A holistic rubric includes examples of pies with
various scores (high =6, low =1). The analytic rubric rates (strong, typical, week) various
aspects of the pie (crust, quality of applies, flavor). Analytic requires more training but
provides more specific information. It is important to be clear about what information we are
trying to gather and the end goal. No one assessment does everything Programmatic feedback
is an important piece of the phase two assessment.

The Writing Committee discussed the rubric for the second phase. It should include three to
four outcomes. The first and second phase should correspond. The revision outcome will not
be possible to assess in phase two. However, the final report should include an explanation for
excluding the item in the second phase. Members agreed that the learning outcomes (A,B,E,
and G) of the phase one rubric could be used in phase two. Samples of assignments to test the
rubric should be brought to the next meeting. The committee will need to structure the review
for focused, efficient, energy. Feedback is essential for faculty participation. The feedback is
successful only if it is the educators that participate in the scoring. This would require the
structure to be different than the current UDWPA scoring practice. When educators participate
in the scoring of the Montana University System Writing Assessment (MUSWA) classroom
instruction improves and this improves students’ scores on MUSWA. There is also a fun social
environment, good food, and teachers receive credit. The momentum takes time. It will likely
take compensation to get UM faculty to participate in writing assessment. It would be
beneficial for the instructors to meet together to apply the rubric.
Chair Chin will meet with Associate Provost Walker-Andrews to discuss Steve’s replacement
and how to progress with phase two.

The Writing Course Consent agenda was approved electronically and submitted to ASCRC
(appended below). It will be incorporated to ASCRC’s curriculum consent agenda for approval
at Thursday’s Faculty Senate meeting.

The committee briefly discussed the assessment data from phase one. The comments section
will need to be standardized (perhaps select from drop down) to facilitate data extraction
capability and analysis. There were some questions regarding the goal. The review should
provide information about how well faculty understand the requirements in order to make
modifications. Both the original form / syllabus and the final form /syllabus should be assessed.
The rolling review of writing courses will begin next year.

The English Writing Competency Catalog Language was compared to the Writing Course
Learning Outcomes. The two should be parallel. ASCRC pointed out that the English Writing
Skills language has more rigor in the second bullet than the Writing Course Learning
Outcomes. The Writing Committee took this into consideration and adopted the following
language. It will be presented to the Faculty Senate in February. Camie will update the
Writing Course Learning Outcomes on the Writing Course Guidelines, the rubric, and the
Writing Course Form.
Group I: English Writing Skills
The ability to write effectively is fundamental to success in academic, professional, and
civic endeavors. Specifically, a student should be able to:


Use writing to learn and synthesize new concepts;
Produce focused writing that is developed, logical and organized







Formulate and express written opinions and ideas that are developed, logical,
and organized;
Compose written documents that are appropriate for a given audience, purpose,
and context;
Revise written documents work based on constructive feedback;
Develop competence in information literacy, information technology and digital
literacy;
Find, evaluate, and use information effectively and ethically
Begin to use discipline-specific writing style and citation conventions;
Demonstrate appropriate English language usage.

Development of a Global Leadership Initiative Writing Course will be postponed for the next
call for proposals.

Director Webster reported that the two appeals both received a non-passing. The students
subsequently re-took the exam and now qualify for the Special Arrangement re-write option
(procedure 202.70).

The committee discussed schedules for spring meetings and agreed on the following
Wednesday’s from 8:10 -10:00 a.m.
February 8
March 14
April 18
Good and Welfare

Chair Chin invited members to think about becoming involved in the National Council of
Teachers of English. The annual convention is in Los Vegas the week prior to Thanksgiving.
The theme is Dream, Connect, Ignite.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:10 a.m.
Writing Course Consent Agenda, ASCRC 11/29/11
Approved
Writing Course
Computer
CSCI 216E
Science
History
HSTA 291
History
HSTA 291
Technology, Ethics, and
Society
America’s National
Parks
Urban Environmental
Current course
One-time only experimental
course – good example of
writing course
Requesting exception to be
taught in Winter Session by
PhD candidate
One-time only experimental
History
course
Requesting exception to be
taught in Winter Session by
PhD candidate
Upper- Division Writing
History
HSTR 436
UG
Latin America: Workers
and Labor History
College of
FOR 475.01
Forestry &
Conservation
Sociology of
Environment and
Development
Course number is changing to
HSTR 335 and dropping
writing designation
Add course to distributed
model
Management
MGMT 486
Strategic Venture
Management
New course
Women &
Gender
Studies
WGS 363
Feminist Theory and
Methods
Course modified -good
example of upper-division
writing course
Proposal Withdrawn
Upper-division Writing Courses
MCLL
CLAS 370
Advanced Writing in
Classical Studies
1 credit upper division writing
course to be taken in conjunction
with another upper division
CLAS courses to meet the
expectation for students majoring
in Classical Languages, Classical
Civilization, or Latin.