Writing Program Annual Report – 2013
Introduction:
Overall Program Goals for 2013
Goals for 2013 Program Development
In January 2013 we developed a list of goals for the year. The list below offers a brief update on those goals, noting our progress in each area.
· Complete our ENG 145 Program Assessment.
o Note: Instructors administered the assessment to all sections of ENG 145 and 145.13 in fall 2013. Our preliminary report on the 145 assessment will be completed in January, 2014, but we will continue to use this data for a range of projects in 2014. For example, we’ll be presenting research at the 2014 CCC conference in Indianapolis about our plan to make ongoing data available to students (for use as part of their coursework) in ENG 101 and ENG 145 classes.
· Prepare for our ENG 101 Program Assessment (Spring 2014):
o NOTE: This assessment is also on schedule. We’ll be completing a full assessment of all ENG 101 classes by the end of Spring 2014, and will be completing different kinds of data analysis during the summer months.
· Continue our Program Coalescence (which assesses our teaching from the faculty perspective and documents the types of activities that our courses include):
o NOTE: The data from our January 2014 coalescence survey (just completed) indicates that the program is becoming significantly more “cohesive” compared to the data we collected in January 2013. We’re pleased to note that in several important areas:
§ Frequent use and explicit teaching of specific key terms and concepts by 80-90 percent of instructors.
§ Increase in the number of teachers who teach explicit types research methods as part of the course.
§ Increase (above 80%) in the number of instructors who are specifically assigning at least one large research project that requires substantive writing (more than 8 pages) and academic citation in various forms.
We’ve also identified several important areas for future professional development:
§ Developing curriculum that allows instructors to incorporate more learning about quantitative and qualitative data in their courses.
§ Working to identify different kinds of “uptake genres” (which we call “proof-of-learning” documents) that allow students to document and articulate their own understanding of their learning in the course.
§ Discussion ways to incorporate “threshold concepts” as a way to help students access their learning (to remember what they’ve learned and be able to use that knowledge in new settings) in classes they take after ENG 101.
· Complete an interactive report on our Information Literacy Assessments that can be used by teachers and students:
o Note: This activity was completed in Fall 2013. The reports (along with other data we’re collecting) will be part of a 2014 goal to create usable data about student learning from a variety of collection resources and offer instructors the opportunity to use these materials in their ENG 101 and ENG 145 courses (see Research Resources Project description).
· Design and make public our new “Research Resources” page:
o NOTE: We haven’t completed this task.
· Complete our first Grassroots Writing Research Journal Special Issue on “Bridging Genre Studies: K-12 to University”:
o NOTE: This project has changed significantly – we are working instead on a “Commonplace Book” that can be used as an additional text in our ENG 101 and ENG 145 courses. Our goal is to complete the first issue of this new text by the end of Fall 2014.
· Finalize Speaker for Fall 2013 & Spring 2014 Speaker Series:
o NOTE: We invited Anis Bawarshi for our 2013 speaker series and his was a very successful visit. We’ve invited Jody Shipka to be the fall speaker for 2014.
· Make progress on our Collaboration with the Visor Center relating to mentoring 101 students
o NOTE: We have not made significant progress on this project although we have met with the Visor Center to develop a plan for training tutors to work with ENG 101 students. We don’t expect this training to be in place before Fall 2014.
· Complete addition to our instructor resources, including:
· Formative assessment
· Summative Assessment
· Global Communications and Writing Research
· Lesson Planning
· Teaching Students to do writing Research
· Complete Additional Student Resources, Including:
· Student Handout on CHAT
· Becoming A Writing Researcher
· Welcome to the Writing Program (for 101 and 145 – this will be part of our program coalescence project, helping students to understand how the course is coherent and useful to them in other academic and non-academic settings)
· Understanding the Writing Program’s Problem-Solving Assessment
· Breaking Down the Learning Outcomes (handouts) – This will include address the new Gen Ed. Outcomes
NOTE on Resource Development : A full description of the resources we’ve developed will be available as part of the spring 2013 and fall 2013 sections of this report. However, we have completed some of these resources, while others are still underway.
· Make final decisions about several projects that have been problematic in their execution. These include:
· Starting a Center for Writing Research and Pedagogy
· Continuation of the Multimodal Composition and Community Action Project
· The Good Day Archive
Note: We’ve decided to discontinue all of these projects.
· Make final decisions about how/where to house resources for instructors that need to be accessed with a password (i.e. confidential reports, examples of student work, etc.). While we currently maintain the ISU Writing Archive, there may be some software options that work better for storing and sharing this information.
Note: We’ve moved most of our resources onto a ReggieNet site for ISU program instructors. We are currently (spring 2014) working on www.isuwriting.com site to link to these resources (which will then only be accessible to instructors on the ReggieNet site.
· Create a clear procedure for gathering, storing and reviewing Instructor course plans
Note: We have created this plan. Each semester now we gather all the course syllabi from writing program instructors and store in an online database. Nancy McKinney completes a report that reviews the course plans for adherence to our learning outcomes and requirements. Thus we have a record of all courseplans and a review that assures instructor’s compliance with our basic program goals and requirements.
· Create a better evaluation for students to use for ENG 101 courses (the current university model is not acceptable and doesn’t provide enough information).
Note: We have created this evaluation (one for both mid-term and end-of-the-semester). New Instructors in Fall 2014 will be using this evaluation system.
· Begin implementation of our Longitudinal Assessment Plan (Spring 2013)
Note: We’ve decided to begin implementation of this plan in Fall 2014, following the spring 2013 program-wide assessment for ENG 101.
Additional Activities
In additional to our stated goals, there were several other projects that became important to us in 2013. They include the following (which are described in more detail in the report):
· The Restructuring of ENG 101.10 course and consulting activities for the course
· Ongoing K-12 and Community College Outreach projects
· Program Podcasts
· Grassroots Writing Research Annual Colloquium
· Swtiching from STV 250 folders to the Reggienet CMS system (accomplished by Fall 2013).
Advisory Bodies
The following groups help to shape and develop the Writing Program’s activities:
The Writing Program Leadership Team: The WPLT Committee is the advisory body for the Writing Program. The committee includes the Center for Writing Research and Pedagogy Research Assistants, the Writing Program Assistants, the Director, and the Assistant Director.
The Critical Inquiry Committee: The Critical Inquiry Committee also acts as an advisory body for the writing program. Headed by the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Sally Parry, the committee includes members from the Writing Program, the Speech Communication program, and the Library.
The Writing Committee: The Writing Committee serves as a departmental advisory body for the Writing Program. Committee members focus on reviewing our annual reports and our goals for each year and making suggestions for improvements and connections with the department and the larger university populations.
Affiliated Organizations
Julia N. Visor Center: The Visor Center works with undergraduate writers and so continue to be a potential source of collaboration for us.
The Milner Library: We continued our relationship with Jennifer Sharkey, the lead instructional librarian at Milner. Our work with Milner focuses on three areas: (1) Developing resources for students, (2) Developing resources for instructors, and (3) research students’ information literacy and using collected data to improve our resources.
Publications
As we’ve developed our goals for the Writing Program, we have developed the following publications to serve as the core texts that help us to meet student and instructor goals, as well to serve targeted populations outside of the writing program that we’ve identified.
· The ISU Writing Website: www.isuwriting.com. The ISU writing website is a “quick look” space for readers to find out about new programs and events, and to get materials. It was originally designed to serve the instructors in the writing program specifically, but our goal is to extend the use of the site to writing instructors in other programs (and potentially citizen writing researchers). In general, this site is not targeted to students, although it is open and accessible to them and they do use resources from this site (such as links to handouts or to archived issues of the GWRJ.
· The Grassroots Writing Research Journal: This journal is designed to provide a venue for writing researchers of all kinds – within and outside of the university. Expansion of our author-base and creating resources for authors within and beyond the writing program are important goals. Our long-term goals for this text (and the website we are planning for 2013) will be to serve the following audiences (and promote their use of and contribution to the journal):
· Instructors in the Writing Program
· Students in the Writing Program
· Students who have participated in the Writing Program who are moving on to other kinds of writing situations in and outside of school
· Citizens locally and regionally who are engaged in interesting and challenging writing practices
· Writing instructors and students in other programs (nationally and internationally)
· The ISU Writing Archive: This Site is a location where we can store data relevant to both ongoing program materials for the writing program. We are currently using it primarily for data that we don’t want to put on our public site – but we also continue to seek out ways to make the resources we create more searchable – so that instructors who aren’t 100% sure of what they need will be able to explore and find resources. Current resources in the archive include:
· Sample course plans for 101 and 145
· Annotated Bibliography of articles related to our genre studies pedagogical model
· Sample descriptions of genres that students and instructors might explore
· Teaching Resources: We also continue to develop specific resources to serve teacher and student needs in the Writing Program. This year our goal has been to develop print-based resources that are useful for instructors beyond the introductory materials we provide for new instructors. We’ve focused on two different categories of handouts – one set is designed to explain important concepts to writing instructors, and the other set is designed to provide explanations to students. For both categories, the goal is for the texts to be usable across different sections of the course (which are taught differently). These resources are published on the www.isuwriting.com site.
· Research & Reports: The Writing Program is continually engaged in different kinds of research and data collection to help us better understand our various constituencies. Reports are generally published on our www.isuwriting.com site.
· ISU Writing Instructors on ReggieNet: This site, developed in 2013, allows us to post resources for instructors that we don’t want to make available to the public. Our goal now is to create descriptions for these resources for our www.isuwriting.com site, with links that only allow access to our instructors (so other viewers and see and read abstracts of available resources, but only our instructors can see password protected materials). This also allows us to highlight resources for ISU students on our site, but without allowing them to link to materials that may not be appropriate for students.
Section I: Spring Semester 2013
Program Staff for Spring 2013
Members of the Writing Program Leadership Team Committee:
· Joyce Walker, Director
· Nancy McKinney, Assistant Director
· Maegan Gaddis, Office Manager
· Summer Qabazard, Community Outreach
· Emily Johnston, K-12 Outreach
· Elizabeth Williams, 101 Coordinator
· Moria Torrington, 101.10 Coordinator
· Chereka Dickerson, 145 Coordinator
· Amy Hicks, Professional Development Coordinator
· Ryan Edel, Technology Coordinator
· Sarah Hercula, Grassroots Writing Research Journal Associate Editor
NOTE: For Semester Reports for each WPLT graduate team member, See Appendices A (spring 2013) & E (fall 2013).
Consultants
The Writing Program uses graduate assistants as consultants to work on specific tasks additional to our WP team positions. In the Spring of 2013, we worked with consultants on various tasks:
· Lisa Lindenfelser, Josette Lorig, Kelsey Forkner: These M.A. level students all did work for the Grassroots Writing Research journal as editors in spring 2013.
Activities During Spring 2013
The Spring Professional Development Event (Writing Summit)
We continue to use our “Writing Summit” model for the professional development days at the beginning of each semester. These events have been well-received, with 69.2 rating the event in the top two categories and 0% indicating that they didn’t find the event useful (see graphic below, and for full survey, see Appendix B).
Restructuring of ENG 101.10