Assessing and Improving Student Writing in College

A Guide for Institutions, General Education, Departments, and Classrooms

Barbara E. Walvoord

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781118559185
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

Step-by-step guidance for shaping better writers while keeping faculty workloads manageable

Effective communication is a critical skill for many academic disciplines and careers, and so colleges and universities and their faculty members are rightfully committed to improving student writing across the curriculum. Guiding and assessing student writing in classrooms, general education, and departments takes knowledge, planning, and persistence, but it can be done effectively and efficiently.

Written in the concise, accessible style Barbara Walvoord is known for, Assessing and Improving Student Writing in College: A Guide for Institutions, General Education, Departments, and Classrooms offers administrators, program chairs, general education leaders, and classroom instructors the guidance they need. The book provides concrete suggestions for how to:

• Articulate goals for student writing
• Measure student writing
• Improve student writing
• Document that improvement

The book begins by addressing four basic concepts: what we mean by writing, what we mean by "good" writing, how students learn to write, and the purposes of assessment. Next, Walvoord explains the various approaches and methods for assessing writing, urging a combination of them adapted to the institution's purposes and political context. After this introduction, successive chapters offer realistic, practical advice to institution-wide and general education leaders, department members, and classroom instructors.

Walvoord addresses issues such as how to engage faculty, how to use rubrics, how to aggregate assessment information at the department and institutional levels, and how to report assessment information to accreditors. The chapter for classroom instructors offers practical suggestions: how to add more writing to a course without substantially increasing the grading load; how to construct writing assignments, how to make grading and responding more effective and time-efficient, how to address grammar and punctuation, and how to support students whose native language is not English.

The book also includes four helpful appendices: a taxonomy of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) programs; sample outlines for faculty development workshops; a student survey on teaching methods instructors can use to inform their choices in the classroom; and a student self-check cover sheet designed to help students take ownership of their own learning and responsibility for turning in complete, correct assignments.

Practical, step-by-step guidance for each point in the assessment and improvement process creates a cohesive, institution-wide system that keeps students, faculty, and administrators on the same page.

Chapter 1
For Everyone

THIS CHAPTER ESTABLISHES basic principles and information for all the following chapters.

What do we mean by “writing”?

Writing is more than grammar and punctuation. A statement developed by faculty under the auspices of the Association of American Colleges and Universities says, “Written communication is the development and expression of ideas in writing. Written communication involves learning to work in many genres and styles. It can involve working with many different writing technologies in various formats on paper and online, and integrating texts, data, and images” (Handa, 2004; Rhodes, 2010). Further, writing is not a separable quality of student work; rather, it is enmeshed with critical thinking, information literacy, problem solving, quantitative reasoning, and other skills.

WAC and WID

Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) refers sometimes to the whole movement (as I use it in this book) and sometimes to an emphasis on using writing to help students learn and explore ideas. Writing in the Disciplines (WID) emphasizes learning disciplinary forms of writing. You do not have to distinguish. The best writing programs help students employ the full power of writing for many purposes.

Why work on writing?

Here are some of the reasons for an institution to work on student writing:

• Writing can enhance students’ higher-order learning, as suggested in more than one hundred studies summarized by Russell (2001).
• Writing is part of several high-impact practices that research has linked to student learning. These practices include writing-intensive courses, frequent higher-order exams and assignments, prompt feedback on student work, tutoring, and supplemental instruction (Selected elements from Kuh, 2008; Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College, 2013; and, for community colleges, the Center for Community College Engagement, 2012).
• Writing is an important skill for students’ academic success in college, which in turn affects retention (Habley, Bloom, and Robbins, 2012, p. 33).
• Writing is one of the skills most emphasized by employers (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2010; Summary in Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2011, p. 26; National Commission on Writing, 2004, 2005).
• Working with student writing affects student engagement, which affects both learning and retention (Light, 2001, p. 55).
• You can work on writing in a number of ways throughout the institution, and you can involve large numbers of faculty and classes. The composition program, writing lab, and writing-across-the-curriculum efforts can be tightly integrated or not, depending on your circumstances.
• Faculty workshops can help faculty develop ways to use writing effectively in their classes and to incorporate other strategies that research has linked to learning (Walvoord, Hunt, Dowling, and McMahon, 1997).
• Writing improvement is an outcome you can assess; methods are suggested in the following chapters.

More broadly, as Brandt notes in her study of literacy and society, “Literacy has always been intimately connected to [equality] and to the well functioning of a democracy. . . . How can you have an effective voice in this society if your literacy is not protected and developed equally to others?” (2009, pp. 14–15).

What Is “Good” Writing?

“Good” writing in biology may look somewhat different from “good” writing in philosophy or business. Thus broad definitions of “good” writing tend to focus on the writer’s ability to meet the needs of audience and purpose, whatever they are. Resources 1.1 lists statements that may be helpful.

The following list is my own version, drawing on the documents in Resources 1.1.

The expert writer:

• Focuses the writing appropriately for the demands of the assignment, situation, and audience, whether that means constructing an argument, recommending solutions to a problem, or reporting scientific research. Uses the modes of reasoning and inquiry, as well as the conventions of correctness that are considered appropriate to the discipline, but also understands the rhetorical situatedness of those modes and their intellectual, political, and social consequences.

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  RESOURCES 1.1: Definitions and Rubrics for “Good” Writing

  • The VALUE rubric for writing, developed under the LEAP program of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (www.aacu.org/leap).
  • The statement of outcomes for an introductory composition course, with suggestions for further development of student writing in other disciplines, by the Council of Writing Program Administrators (www.wpacouncil.org/positions/outcomes.html).
  • The “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing,” endorsed by the Council of Writing Program Administrators, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the National Writing Project (http://wpacouncil.org/framework).
  • The CLAQWA rubrics, which are part of a system for peer review, grading, instructor feedback, and program assessment. They describe the cognitive levels as well as the full range of writing skills across the disciplines (http://claqwa.com). Banta, Griffin, Flateby, and Kahn (2009) describe the CLAQWA system as one of “three promising alternatives” for assessing college students’ knowledge and skills (pp. 12–18).
  • The National Writing Project (2010, p. 147) objectives related to digital and multimedia forms.
  • Conference on College Composition and Communication, “Position Statement on Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments” (2004). (www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/digitalenvironments).
  • The Degree Qualifications Profile is a national framework stating what students should be expected to know and do when they earn an associate’s, bachelor’s, or master’s degree (http://www.luminafoundation.org/publications/The_Degree_Qualifications_Profile.pdf).

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• Organizes the writing in an effective way for its audiences and purposes.
• Locates, evaluates, integrates, and cites information from various sources.
• Follows ethical principles for research and writing, including collaboration with peers, use of sources (avoiding plagiarism), and ethics of the disciplines such as protecting privacy, presenting accurate data, and respecting alternative viewpoints.
• Integrates quantitative material, charts and graphs, images, and other multimedia material as appropriate; understands, critically evaluates, and appropriately employs new technologies and new digital and multimedia forms.
• Produces clear, coherent sentences and paragraphs shaped for their audiences and purposes.
• Uses the grammar and punctuation of Edited Standard Written English (ESWE) in appropriate circumstances, such as formal academic, business, civic, and professional writing.
• Follows productive writing processes.
• Collaborates effectively with others to both give and receive feedback on a writer’s emerging work.

Grammar and Punctuation

It is best to avoid terms like “correct English” or “bad English” or “error” when discussing grammar and punctuation, because these terms imply an inaccurate understanding of the realities of language:

• All languages (including nonstandard forms of English) are rule-bound. There is a rule for “She work at IBM” and a rule for “She works at IBM.”
• The rules in every language change over time, and different forms of language arise in different cultural or geographic communities.
• No set of language conventions is inherently better than another.
• Skilled writers and speakers will “code switch”—using “she work at IBM” in a home or neighborhood setting and “she works at IBM” in an academic or professional setting.
• Every multicultural and multilingual society tries to balance, on the one hand, the need for a common language that allows all citizens to understand one another, and on th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Chapter 1: For Everyone
• Chapter 2: For Institution-Wide and General-Education Leaders
• Chapter 3: For Departments and Programs
• Chapter 4: For Classroom Instructors
• Appendix A: A Taxonomy of WAC/WID Programs
• Appendix B: Outline for Faculty Workshops
• Appendix C: Student Survey on Teaching Methods
• Appendix D: Student Self-Check Cover Sheet
• References
• Index
• End User License Agreement