Report on Lessons Learned from the Spring 2012 Review of GE Course
Writing Materials
Asao B. Inoue, Special Assistant to the Provost for Writing Across the Curriculum
August 28, 2012 (revised on September 17, 2013)
Presented to: William Covino, Provost
Lynnette Zelezny, Associate Provost
As requested, I offer this brief review and discussion of lessons learned from the spring 2012 review of
writing materials from GE courses submitted to the WAC Advisory committee. The committee consisted
of the following regularly attending members:
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Kim Morin (Co-Chair), Theatre Arts
Ginny Crisco, English
Charles Ettner, Linguistics
Rick Hansen, English
Bradley Hufft, Music
Miles Ishigaki, Music
Chuck Radke, Division of Grad Studies
Rudy Sanchez, Craig School of Business
Meta Schettler, Africana Studies
Judith Scott, Communication
Bo Wang, English
The committee met four times and reviewed 37 sets of course materials from faculty without faculty
names or identities on the materials. All discussions were made without reference to any particular
faculty. After those discussions, the WAC Director, Asao B. Inoue, emailed to each faculty a synopsis of
the observations made on his/her materials. Again, these observations were confidential and formative
in a nature. The WAC program appreciates the goodwill and trust that faculty displayed in offering their
course materials for review.
There were a total of 77 submissions. All feedback was non-evaluative and formative in nature. The
courses reviewed by the committee were from the following departments and programs:
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Drama
Plant Science
Political Science
Agricultural Sciences and Technology
Communications
Kinesiology
Science and Mathematics
Women's Studies
Social Science
Child and Family Sciences
A. B. Inoue 2
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History
Business
Anthropology
Gerontology
Physical Education and Human Performance
Music
English
Criminology
Economics
Biology
Recreation and Administration
LESSONS LEARNED
Upon reflection, I make the following observations about the writing occurring in GE courses:
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There are many faculty who offer lots of writing help to students. Most of this help comes in
the form of assignment guides, grading rubrics, online resources (e.g., Purdue’s OWL Web site
is popular), and in some cases, examples of the kind of writing the teacher is looking for in
particular assignments.
The common practice is to assign writing, but the committee often found it difficult to find
where in the class there was much discussion, help, or work that helped students generate,
invent, or revise drafts. Teachers may involve students in such work, but based on the materials
provided the committee had no way to know what actually happens in class sessions.
There were few instances of courses that asked for multiple drafts, which suggests that the
graded draft by the teacher was the first and only time a student received any feedback by the
teacher (see second bullet item for the committee’s caveat to this conclusion).
In most cases, writing assignments were relatively short, meeting the GE guidelines for the
course, but amounting to around 1,500-2,000 words generated in a semester in any given GE
course. In the larger process of education by students, this is not much writing experience.
Usually when there were detailed grading rubrics, lists of expectations, or lists of dos and don’ts
by the teacher, they either consisted of errors, grammar issues, and pet-peeves of the teacher,
or they were highly prescriptive instructions on the form that the writing should take (e.g., first
paragraph should say . . . title should be . . . etc.). Most detailed instructions that dealt with
assessment and grading criteria were not about content, but prescriptive rules and
errors/grammar.
There were very few (maybe 1 or 2) courses that referenced the Writing Center as a resource. It
appears the Writing Center is not seen as a resource for teachers to suggest to their students.
These are the main lessons learned. In response to these lessons, the WAC program has incorporated
several ideas into its scheduled workshops for the AY 2012-2013, particularly those lessons above about
assessing and grading student writing. Additionally, the WAC program has kept last year’s workshop
series, “Reading Student Writing,” which offers ways for more teachers to design good writing
assignments and assess them effectively.
It is clear that the increase in workload and class sizes has affected GE teachers’ assigned writing in their
classes, and how much time they can spend on responding to writing.
A. B. Inoue 3
In the fall 2012 semester, the WAC program will continue to call for and review writing materials for GE
courses, excluding those who have already offered theirs.