Departmental Self-Assessment
To complete our department's self-assessment, the university asked that
LTWR design and implement a plan to study student writing in some of our Spring 1999
courses. The intent of the assessment was for us as faculty to become more aware of our
students’ writing and area-specific content skills. This assessment process was not a
teaching evaluation. Equally important, the assessors’ comments did not influence
student grades. Assessors focused on the quality of our students' writing as
demonstrated in their portfolios.
Assessment Plan
1. The team selected the following courses because the courses have a range of objectives. For instance, although LTWR 309A and LTWR 604 are both literature courses, the student populations are distinct. One involves undergraduate students while the other involves graduate students. We were also interested in comparing the writing skills and techniques in creative writing with those in literary analyses.
- Early U.S. Literature (LTWR 309A)
- Creative Writing Workshop (LTWR 325)
- Seminar in Author Studies: James Joyce (LTWR 604)
2. Each participating instructor submitted the following:
- student portfolios for the selected class
- a copy of the corresponding assignment sheets
- a copy of the course syllabus with the learning objectives highlighted
3. Each student portfolio included the following:
- a 2-3 page reflective essay that explains what the portfolio reveals about what the student learned as a writer and as a thinker in the respective class
- final drafts of two (2) papers completed for the respective class
4. Using the essay rubric and a creative writing rubric developed for this project, three (3) LTWR faculty were socialized to apply the rubrics to the student portfolios from the selected courses. To socialize the team, each member read the same student portfolio from each class and applied the rubric. Each team member discussed their scores and comments. The team continued to read portfolios from a specific class (LTWR 309A, LTWR 325, or LTWR 604) until the scores were identical and the comments were nearly the same. This completed the socialization process.
5. With the socialization process completed, the remaining portfolios from each class were read and scored using the appropriate rubric. For this assessment, each student portfolio (with the exception of the socialized portfolios) was read once.
Stipends
The university paid our department $500 to conduct the assessment.
The faculty participants agreed to the following: Faculty who collected student
portfolios
received $50 each and that those who served as assessors divided the remaining $350.