Writing Specialist Report-Spring Semester 2010

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Writing Specialist Report-Spring Semester 2010

TrinityWashingtonUniversity

College of Arts and Sciences

Jake Hinkson

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents-p.1

Introduction-p.2

Part One: Outcomes p.2

Final grades

Lab results

What worked

What did not work

Part Two: Incoming Students p.5

Accuplacer Placement Test

Post Test

At what grade level do 105s students write?

Part Three: Recommendations for Curriculum Focus p.7

Sentences

Paragraphs

Basic structure

Phases of paper writing

Part Four: Further Recommendations p. 9

Attendance

Standardized syllabus

Orientations

Collaboration with reading specialist

Basic study skills

Appendix A: Grades p. 11

Chart 1: Pass/Fail

Chart 2: Grade Distribution

Chart 3: Section One: Paper Grades/Lab Grades/Attendance/Final Grades

Chart 4: Section Two: Paper Grades/Lab Grades/Attendance/Final Grades

Appendix B: The Accuplacer p. 14

Chart 5: Placement test results

Chart 6: Post-semester test results

Chart 7: Placement vs. post-test comparison

Chart 8: Post-test vs. final grade comparison

Appendix C: The Syllabus p. 18

ENG 105s syllabus

Revised syllabus

Introduction

The purpose of this report is to provide an assessment of outcomes for two sections of ENG 105s (hereafter referred to as “section one” and “section two”) at Trinity Washington University during the spring semester of 2010. The report will examine these outcomes for the purpose of developing recommendations for the continued improvement of foundational writing courses offered at Trinity.

ENG 105s met on Monday and Wednesday and had a mandatory lab on Friday. The course was designed around the planning, writing, and revising of three major papers. The final grade for ENG 105s was tabulated using the following rubric:

Participation 20%

Lab 20%

Essay 1 20%

Essay 2 20%

Essay 3 20%

(Please see Appendix C for a copy of the syllabus)

Part One: Outcomes

Section one was enrolled with eighteen students. Section two was enrolled with twenty students. In order to progress to the next class in the composition sequence students must earn a grade of at least a C.

The final grades for each section were as follows:

Section one:

A / 2
B / 3
C / 4
C- or below / 9

Section two:

A / 3
B / 4
C / 4
C- or below / 9

Immediately noticeable is the 50% failure rate for section one and the 45% failure rate for section two. Different factors contribute to a failing grade, but the overwhelming factor in the failure rate for both sections was a high number of absences. Of the eighteen students who failed, eleven were absent at least 55% of the semester. For a student by student breakdown of this information, please see Charts 3 and 4.

The remaining six students who earned a C- or below had a higher attendance rate, but all six had a low or failing lab grade.

Since the lab component of ENG 105s is its most distinctive characteristic, a closer evaluation of it is needed.

What is the lab?

Students met with the instructor each Friday for fifty minutes in the computer-equipped lab room Main 242. Labs consisted of focused lessons on grammar and usage. Topics covered included: nouns, verbs, verbal phrases, verb tense, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, run-on sentences, fragments, comma usage, coordinating conjunctions, semi-colons, subject-verb agreements, parallelism, and quotations. Labs typically followed a pattern of a short lecture followed by a worksheet which the instructor and group worked on together, and ended with another worksheet completed by the students individually.

What are the results of the lab?

Unsurprisingly, students who attended lab on a regular basis and performed well on the worksheets earned higher final grades. This is to be expected since the lab constituted 20% of the final grade. More tellingly, perhaps, students with an 80% or higher lab grade were more likely to receive passing grades on the major paper assignments. For a student by student breakdown of this information, please see Charts 3 and 4.

An example of the lab’s impact: one of the major sentence-level problems in class was the prevalence of run-on sentences. Students who attended the labs dedicated to discussing run-ons showed marked improvement over the course of the semester in dealing with this problem. The inverse is true. Students who missed (or performed poorly in) those labs struggled throughout the semester with identifying and correcting run-on sentences.

Since ample classroom time must be spent on nuts and bolts issues like run-on sentences, the lab is a vital element of ENG 105s.

ENG 105s: WHAT WORKED

• The lab was a success. Students who attended and engaged in labs earned higher grades and improved their writing. The structure of the lab (lecture, group worksheet, individual worksheet) showed solid results.
• The first paper—a personal narrative—elicited high student participation. Many students asked questions and volunteered answers during class discussions of related material. A majority of students turned in the rough draft and did revisions.
• The second paper enjoyed a similar level of student engagement. Students were asked to 1) choose a subculture with which they’d had little interaction, 2) go to a public place where they could observe the subculture, and 3) write a report about their experiences. The assignment combined narrative, description, and ethno-graphic observation. A majority of students completed all three steps of the process. A majority also did drafts and revisions.
• Group conferences-Instructor met with small groups (4-5 students) to return rough drafts for revision. This allowed for personal interaction and targeted mini-lessons on common problems (for example, on using quotations). These small sessions lasted thirty-five minutes and proved successful. Students were more likely to pay attention, take notes, and stay engaged.

WHAT DID NOT WORK

• Paper three—an argumentative paper requiring research—was less successful. In both sections, grades for this paper were lower than on the previous assignments, and most students dropped one letter grade from their previous papers (for a student by student breakdown of this information, see Charts 3 and 4). A majority of students lacked the rhetorical skills needed to craft arguments. They also struggled to find and use research. These shortcomings were difficult to address in the timeframe provided. There are two ways to compensate for this failure in the future:
• Address issues of argumentation and research earlier in the semester, perhaps building the first two papers around small, researched-based arguments.
• Eliminate the argumentative paper from the course, focusing instead on developing the personal, narrative based writing begun on the first two papers.

Option two—eliminating the argumentative paper altogether—is recommended. Please see Part Three of this report for details.

• The class used the freshman-level reader Remix by Catherine G. Latterell. The book features short, entertaining essays on a variety of topics by a diverse group of authors. The class had limited success with the book, however, for the following reasons:
• Many students did not buy the book.
• Although none of the readings were above a high school level, they seemed difficult for many students to understand.
• Many students did not do the readings on a consistent basis.

A possible solution to this problem is to focus on shorter, in-class readings. It may also be desirable to have some collaboration with the Reading Specialist in selecting appropriate reading materials. For more on these suggestions, see Part III of this report.

• Peer review days had limited success. Many students rushed through the process and made scant suggestions for their peers. Moreover, the quality of the suggestions was quite low (for example, many students proposed sentence level revisions for their peers that were grammatically incorrect).

Part Two: Incoming Students

Students are assigned to composition courses, in part, on the basis of their score on the Accuplacer Placement test. The test ranks students using the following model:

Writing Score / CAS Course Suggestion
1, 2, 3 / ENGL 105S
4, 5 / ENGL 105
6, 7 / ENGL 107
8 / ENGL 107 Honors

Section one was enrolled with eighteen students. Section two was enrolled with twenty students. The average score for these thirty-eight students on the Accuplacer was four. The highest score was seven. The lowest score was one. Since the average score was four, we can infer that other factors were used in assigning students to composition courses. This calls into question the value of the Accuplacer placement test.

At the end of the semester, students in both sections were asked to retake the placement test for the purposes of comparison. A total of twenty students retook the test. Results were inconclusive. Roughly one-third improved their score, one-third actually scored lower, and one-third saw no change. (For a detail breakdown, see Chart 8.)

Based on these results, it should be clear that the Accuplacer does not provide a clear indication of the writing level of incoming students. So what does the median range of writing ability in this group of thirty-eight students look like?

To begin answering this question, it might help to have a frame of reference. Since many of our students are products of the DC public school system, it might be useful to begin by looking at the grading standards of DC public schools.

According to the DCPS’s official grading standards, a 12th grader should be able to:

write interpretations of literary or expository reading that

odemonstrate a grasp of the theme or purpose of the work;

oanalyze the use of imagery, language, and unique aspects of text;

osupport key ideas through accurate and detailed references to the text or to other works;

odemonstrate awareness of the effects of the author's stylistic and rhetorical devices; and assess the impact of perceived ambiguities, nuances, and complexities within text.

construct arguments that

opresent a cogent thesis;

ostructure ideas in a sustained and logical fashion;

ouse a range of strategies to elaborate and persuade, such as descriptions, anecdotes, case studies, analogies, and illustrations;

oclarify and defend positions with precise and relevant evidence, including facts, expert opinions, quotations, and/or expressions of commonly accepted beliefs and logical reasoning;

oanticipate and address readers' concerns and counterclaims with evidence;

odemonstrate understanding of purpose and audience;

oand provide effective introductory and concluding paragraphs that guide and inform the reader's understanding of key ideas and evidence.

write an extended research essay that

orequires the student to engage in self-directed research; engages the reader by establishing a context;

ouses an organizing structure appropriate to purpose and specified audience;

oorganizes evidence in support of a thesis and related claims, including information on relevant perspectives;

oconveys information and ideas from primary and secondary sources accurately and coherently; paraphrases and summarizes different perspectives on the topic as appropriate;

omakes distinctions about the relative value and significance of specific data, facts, and ideas; anticipates and addresses the reader's potential misunderstandings, biases, and expectations with evidence;

oemploys technologies and graphics as appropriate;

oprovides a clear and coherent conclusion;

oand cites research sources according to standard format for works cited.

The average 105s student falls far short of reaching these standards. This is to be expected, of course, since 105s is designed as a foundational course. What is needed, however, is a clearer sense of just how far the average student in this course falls short of meeting these goals.

Consider the following set of learning goals:

A student shall be able to:

• Create multiparagraph essays that

opresent effective introductions and concluding paragraphs

oguide and inform the reader's understanding of key ideas and evidence.

• Example: Students write summaries of biographies of various African American historical figures, such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Madame C.J. Walker, and Mary McLeod Bethune. They group their ideas into categories that make sense for the biographies and place the categories in a logical order as they compose a multi-paragraph report.

Write explanations of a process that include a topic statement, supporting details, and a conclusion.

• Example: Students write a report of a science experiment that was conducted in class, describing both the process and the scientific conclusions. They describe the steps clearly, using precise scientific vocabulary, so that another reader could follow exactly what the experiment involved and could understand the reasoning behind the conclusion. They add graphics and text design to make the content clearer and easier to follow.

Write research reports with clear focus and supporting detail.

• Example: Students research an event or person from the Colonial America period and write a research report with a clear focus and supporting details. The multi-paragraph report uses effective introductions and concluding paragraphs and illustrates key ideas. Students revise their writing to improve coherence and progression.

Revise writing to improve coherence and progression by adding, deleting, combining, and rearranging sentences.

The preceding list was taken from the grading standards for fifth graders in DC public schools. It may well be a shock to the system to realize that many ENG 105s students would struggle to meet these minimum requirements, but that is the state of affairs among this student population. The first day of class, students were given a prompt and asked to write a short response essay. Using the criteria outline above, most of the student wrote at, or below, the 5th grade level.

Part Three: Recommendations for Curriculum Goals

What does this mean in practical terms? It means, among many other things, that most incoming 105s students cannot

correctly identify or differentiate between the seven basic parts of speech (noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective, conjunction, preposition).

correctly identify the predicate of a simple sentence

recognize that a word performs different functions according to its position in the sentence

identify and use correct punctuation, including commas, quotation marks, and semicolons

use correct capitalization, or

correctly write a compound sentence.

Many 105s students do not understand the form or function of a paragraph (several students turned in papers consisting in one long unindented paragraph). Many do not understand the basic concept of the introduction, body, and conclusion.

In order for Trinity to properly augment its curriculum for ENG 105s it must be clearly understood that many, if not most, of the students entering this class in their first semester of college have deficiencies in nearly all areas of their writing. Some are non-native speakers who begin with a distinct disadvantage. Others are functionally illiterate and struggle at the level of a simple sentence. Most simply lack basic writing skills.

ENG 105s must be streamlined to meet the needs of these students. It is a foundational class, and its focus must be the foundations of essay writing. Even taking into account the range of abilities in a group of thirty-eight people, the average student in ENG 105s is writing on a 5th grade level.

This presents enormous challenges to the instructor. With such a wealth of problems it is vital to bear down on a few core issues. While all manner of other issues will arise in the course of a semester, these core issues must represent the main focus of the class. The following is a list of the main problem areas and suggested classroom goals:

I.Sentences

Most ENG 105s students have fundamental problems with sentences, and some students enter class writing incomprehensible word clusters rather than sentences. This is a serious problem with many facets. Still, there are four major areas that need attention.

1.Subject-Verb agreement

2.Faulty Parallelism

3.Run-on sentences

4.Fragments

This list only scratches the surface of the sentence-level problems in the classroom, but it is an excellent place to begin. The elimination of these four problem areas should be a core goal of the class.

II.Paragraphs

Here again, the focus should be the basics. Beginning writers in ENG 105s must be taught the essentials of paragraph writing:

1.the topic sentence

2.supporting sentences

3.concluding/transition sentences

III.Basic Structure

There are many ways to make ENG 105s interesting or fun for the students. Different teachers will have, and should have, different ideas about how to best engage students in the major paper assignments. What is of the upmost importance, however, is that ENG 105s bear down on the basic structure of the essay:

1.An introduction with a topic and thesis

2.A body that develops or seeks to prove the thesis

3.A conclusion that summarizes the main points of the paper and brings the discussion to a satisfying close.

Paper assignments should be kept short (2-3 pages). They should also keep research to a minimum. The focus should be on expository, narrative, or explanatory writing. The rhetorical architecture of an argumentative paper is too advanced at this stage of the writing process.

IV.Phases of Paper Writing

Students must be taught that there are three stages of the writing process. These phases should be given equal time and weight both inside and outside of class.

1.Prewriting (freewriting, brainstorming, outlining)

2.Writing

3.Revision

Students should be made to engage in each stage of the writing process before a final grade is given. It’s advisable to make each stage of this process rewardable. (Only 15% of the students in sections one and two turned in rough drafts for all three papers.) Students have not been taught the value of a revision for revision’s sake. This process must be emphasized in the classroom, and rewarding points for each stage increases the likelihood of student engagement.