General Education Annual Course Assessment Form
(due September 1)
Course Number/Title _Humanities 100W________________________ GE Area Z
Results reported for AY _2010-2011 # of sections __4____ # of instructors_4_(Guenter,
Georges, Walters, Scaff)
Course Coordinator: _Susan Scaff_____________ email: sscaff@sbcglobal.net___
Department Chair: __CHRIS JOCHIM___________ College: _______H&A_______________
Instructions: Each year, the department will prepare a brief (two page maximum) report that
documents the assessment of the course during the year. This report will be electronically submitted by the department chair to the Office of Undergraduate Studies with an electronic copy to
the home college by September 1 of the following academic year.
Part 1
To be completed by the course coordinator:
(1)
What SLO(s) were assessed for the course during the AY?
SLO # 2: Students must learn to express (explain, analyze, develop, and criticize) ideas
effectively, including ideas encountered in multiple readings and expressed in different
forms of discourse.
(2)
What were the results of the assessment of this course? What were the lessons learned
from the assessment?
All four 100W instructors gave significant assignments that required explaining, analyzing, and criticizing texts and developing these ideas in essay format.
Prof. Guenter assigned a final exam that consisted of a single essay (choice out of three
possibilities) drawing together three of the essays that the class had been assigned from
an anthology, The Best American Essays of the Century. In this 2 ¼ hour final students
are asked to “reflect upon, summarize, critique, and analyze” their three essays on a specific given topic, for example, different ways of connecting scientific method to the natural world or family relations.
Prof. Georges required the class to write an analysis comparing the main theme(s) in two
films. Students are asked “to interpret the essential meaning of more than one work and
to assess similarities and differences between them.” The purpose of the assignment is “to
develop your skills of observation, interpretation, thesis presentation, and evaluation, using film as text. Each pair contains one foreign language film to encourage you to think
about similar themes from the perspective of more than one culture.” This written exer-
cise, enhanced by discussions in small groups and followed by an oral presentation, requires students to prepare “summaries, analyses, critiques, and ratings for each film,
amounting to a verbal film review.”
Prof. Walters assigned various short papers calling for analysis, criticism, and combination of ideas. One of these is a critique of Plato’s Apology. This assignment asks students to address a number of specific questions about the dialogue from one of four perspectives: legal, philosophical, theological, or academic. With this method students are
forced beyond naïve observations to a sophisticated awareness of the discipline or genre
of their approach to analysis. Questions such as “What was Socrates’ notion of ‘God?’”
or “How is wisdom defined in The Apology?” take students deep into the text, requiring
sophisticated analysis.
I required a 4-5 page comparison essay in which students analyze a single theme (family,
childhood, or minority experience) in two from a list of essays in The Best American Essays of the Century. The students receive specific instructions for drawing the two texts
together, for example, to organize the essay on either a similarities and differences or a
topics pattern, going back and forth between the two texts as they make comparisons.
(They are specifically told not to write one-half of the paper on one text followed by the
second half on another, which would be to produce two separate essays side by side rather than to engage deeply in comparative analysis.) They are also shown patterns of
comparison theses that draw the two texts together in a meaningful point or argument.
To do well on this paper, students must follow these instructions and use the proper writing tools to probe for deep meaning. Superficial papers receive lower grades.
All four professors received good results with many grades in the middle to upper range.
Out of 26 students Guenter reports that the bulk received grades in the A- to B- range,
with 4 others working at A level and 4 at C level. Georges grades were a little higher,
with 14 ranked excellent out of 26 and 5 and 7 in the “good” and “adequate” categories.
Out of 16 students session Prof. Walters had just two A grades for this assignment and 8
B, 5 C, and 1 D grades. In my class 14 students turned in this assignment, earning 4 A, 7
B, and 3 C grades. In all cases the bulk of the class earned grades of A and B on this assignment covering SLO # 2.
I conclude from the reports on these essay assignments that we have a group of teachers
employing a variety of creative methods to put their students to the tasks of analyzing and
thinking critically about texts. All instructors are teaching at a high level, assigning papers that require students to achieve college standards. The assignments in all cases are
carefully constructed, complex, and rigorous.
(3)
What modifications to the course, or its assessment activities or schedule, are planned for
the upcoming year? (If no modifications are planned, the course coordinator should indicate this.)
NONE.
Part 2
To be completed by the department chair (with input from course coordinator as appropriate):
(4)
Are all sections of the course still aligned with the area Goals, Student Learning Objectives (SLOs), Content, Support, and Assessment? If they are not, what actions are
planned?
YES.