Description of Phase I, II, III

Phase I – Begins Fall 2010

A total of 20 faculty members who teach WRITD courses during Fall of 2010 will be selected, with attention to departments/divisions and course level taught, and asked to participate in Phase I of the WAC writing assessment. The Director of WAC will send a short description of the assessment process and its purpose with a follow-up phone call as needed to encourage faculty participation.  (See Appendix A.)  Once a faculty member agrees to participate in the writing assessment process, a more detailed description of steps within the assessment process will be sent.  (See Appendix B.)

The primary focus of Phase I will be on WRITD courses since the College has data from the FTS Program Survey that focuses on entry-level WRITI courses.  However, one focus group (described below) will invite those who teach WRITI courses to a discussion of the WRITI criteria and strengths and areas for improvement within WRITI courses. 

There are three criteria for WRITD courses. 

  1. A WRITD course provides students with opportunities to read and analyze examples of discipline-specific writing.
  2. A WRITD course requires students to complete writing assignments that exemplify the structures, genres, and conventions of the disciplines.
  3. A WRITD course offers students opportunities to revise their work with the help of an instructor's feedback.

Phase I of the WAC assessment process will include the following steps and does not require a faculty member to add new assignments or change anything within a WRITD course.

  1. Completion of the attached faculty course survey related to one WRITD course taught by the selected faculty member during Fall 2010.  The survey will be completed and submitted to the Director of WAC at the end of fall semester.  (See Appendix C.)
  2. Faculty participants will be asked to submit a first and final draft student paper for one major assignment completed by three students within the WRITD class; a total of three first drafts and three final drafts are submitted by each of the 20 faculty participants.  Faculty members will secure written permission from students to share their papers for research and assessment purposes.  (See Appendix D).
  3. A course syllabus for this WRITD course will be submitted to the Director of WAC.
  4. Students within each WRITD class will be asked to complete a short online pre-test/survey the first week of class (Appendix E), and then complete a more in-depth survey at the end of the WRITD course during December of 2010 (Appendix F). The very brief online pre-test/survey will provide baseline information and the end of course online survey will focus on how the course helped improve student writing with attention to the Learning Outcomes identified earlier in this document.  These surveys will be posted on the WAC web site under Assessment Plan for faculty review during fall term.
    *The faculty course survey, sample papers, and syllabus can all be submitted online.
    A Moodle site for this assessment process has been created so that files can easily be uploaded.  If a faculty member is unfamiliar with Moodle, he or she may simply send all documents as .doc files attached to an email to the Director of WAC. To upload files, each faculty participant in the assessment process can access the WAC/WPAC Moodle site after logging into Moodle.
  5. The Writing Program Advisory Committee (WPAC) will also hold three open forums to gather additional information.  One session will invite any interested faculty member to attend and provide input on the writing program, one forum will be directed to faculty who teach WRITI courses, and one forum will focus on faculty who teach WRITD courses. These forums will be scheduled during spring 2011 as follow up to the process initiated Fall 2010.
  6. WPAC will analyze all information using appropriate rubrics, and provide input to the writing of a final report for Phase I of the assessment process during spring 2011.  The Director of WAC will write this report, share results with the Dean of Academic Programs, and make the report available to all interested faculty.
    Phase I of the assessment plan should be repeated every six years.

Phases II and III of the WAC assessment process will involve identification of 50 students enrolled in FTS courses during Fall 2011.  An email will be sent to these students that emphasizes the importance of their participation in the writing program assessment during their four-years at Gustavus. (Discussion will be needed regarding the possibility of a monetary incentive to be awarded senior year to students who fully participate in the assessment process.)  Students who agree to participate will be asked to submit two papers written in the FTS class.  They will also submit two papers written during either the sophomore or junior year, and two papers written during the senior year.  All papers will be uploaded to a WAC Moodle site.  A faculty writing assessment team will be appointed by the director of WAC, in consultation with the Directors of FTS and the Writing Center.  This team will read and assess quality of student writing/achievement of Learning Outcomes as evidenced by papers submitted from FTS courses during Spring 2012.  Data will be summarized and a report based on Phase II information will be written by the Director of WAC and Director of FTS after consultation with the writing assessment team and WPAC. This report will be shared with the Dean of Academic Programs and made available to interested faculty.

During Phase III of the writing program assessment, a writing assessment team will meet when the student participants identified Fall 2011 are seniors (spring 2015) to assess improvement of student writing/papers submitted from year one to year four.  Appropriate writing rubrics will be utilized during the Phase II and III assessment process.  Although we cannot control for number of writing courses an individual student may complete and other individual variables that could affect writing, we will gather useful demographic information as a foundation for assessment.  The goal is to assess improvement in student writing from the first year to the final year of college after completion of the three-course writing requirement.  During academic year 2010-2011, logistics for Phase II and III will be further developed.  As part of this process, faculty members who teach WRIT courses completed by student participants in Phase II and III will be asked to submit a syllabus for the course.  Seniors participating in the assessment will also be asked to complete a short online survey regarding their writing and the impact of the writing program.  This will allow the writing assessment team to compare and contrast information such as types of writing assignments completed, student and faculty perceptions regarding the impact of revision, and other elements to be considered.  A report based on Phase III assessment will be written by the Director of WAC after consultation with the writing assessment team and WPAC.  This report will be shared with the Dean of Academic Programs and made available to interested faculty.
A second round of Phase II and III assessment will begin with a new group of student participants during FTS, Fall 2016. 

This assessment process as described above will be regularized so that the three-phase assessment of student writing and the WAC program occurs every six years.  Future Directors of Writing Across the Curriculum will be asked by the Dean of Academic Programs to facilitate the assessment process and to annually discuss with WPAC potential changes and improvements within the process. The assessment process will also serve as a foundation for writing-related faculty development opportunities.