Assessing and Improving Student Writing in College E-Book

Barbara E. Walvoord

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 200

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

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.

Leseprobe

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Chapter 1: For Everyone

What do we mean by “writing”?

WAC and WID

Why work on writing?

What Is “Good” Writing?

How Do Students Learn to Write?

How to Improve Student Writing

How to Assess Writing

Reporting to Accreditors

Chapter Summary

Chapter 2: For Institution-Wide and General-Education Leaders

Study Successful Programs

Create a Sense of Urgency

Consider “Value-Added” Assessment

Understand Your Students and Programs

Assess Student Writing

Institute Structures for Assessment and Action

Provide Leadership

Assess your WAC Programs

Report Your Assessment and Actions

Chapter Summary

Chapter 3: For Departments and Programs

Establish Learning Goals for Writing

Gather Information about Student Writing

Gather Information about your Program

Take Action

Report Your Actions and Results

Chapter Summary

Chapter 4: For Classroom Instructors

Observe Your Class

Improve Student Writing on One of Your Assignments

Add More Writing without More Paper Load

Make Grading and Responding Time-Efficient and Effective

Address Grammar, Punctuation, and ESOL

Plan a Course with Significant Writing

Chapter Summary

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

List of Illustrations

FIGURE 1.1 Choices for Rubrics

FIGURE 1.2 System for Using Assessment Information

List of Tables

TABLE 1.1 Approaches to Assessment

TABLE 2.1 Choices for Providing Prompts, Rubrics, and Scoring of Student Work

TABLE 4.1 Grades and Writing Processes of a Representative Group of Students

TABLE 4.2 A Student’s Written Record, Illustrating Unproductive Strategies

TABLE 4.3 Choices about First Exposure

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Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Assessing and Improving Student Writing in College

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

Barbara E. Walvoord

Cover design by Lauryn Tom/Wiley

Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-1-118-55912-3 (ebk)

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To Sharon

Preface

WRITING IS A powerful way to have a voice in one’s society. It enables professional advancement. It nurtures thinking and reflection. I have never met an educator who didn’t want his or her students to write well. This focus on the importance of writing has fed the writing-across-the-curriculum movement, which is now stronger than ever (Thaiss and Porter, 2010). Writing is one of the most common skills that institutions choose for their quality enhancement projects as they seek reaccreditation. I wrote this book to provide institutions, departments, and classroom instructors with a single, brief, clear, and simple guide that will help them when they want to work more intensively on their students’ writing.

This book is arranged like my Assessment Clear and Simple: It begins with a chapter for everyone to read. That chapter establishes some basic concepts: what we mean by writing, what we mean by “good” writing, how students learn to write, and the basics of assessing writing. The next chapters are each addressed to a different group of people—Chapter Two for institutional and general-education leaders, Chapter Three for departments, and Chapter Four for classroom instructors.

The chapter for classroom instructors has a special role. There are two excellent books about working with writing in the classroom: John Bean’s Engaging Ideas (2011), for any discipline or course that asks for thesis-based writing, and Patrick Bahls’ Student Writing in the Quantitative Disciplines (2012). In my short chapter, I cannot repeat or summarize all their wonderful ideas. What was missing, I thought, was a guide to faculty workshops, which, as I emphasize throughout the book, play a crucial role in any campus effort to improve student writing. So the chapter for instructors is arranged not only as a guide for an individual faculty reader who wants to enhance writing in his or her classroom, but also as a guide for a series of three-hour faculty workshops that can be led by anyone, regardless of their knowledge of the field or their skills as a presenter: they need only to facilitate the discussion and not talk too much. Each workshop focuses on a different action that faculty members can take in their classrooms—actions such as improving an assignment or integrating informal writing for student learning. The topics can be combined into longer workshops or adapted for different settings and lengths. Appendix B suggests the workshop outline.

I hope that the chapters will help a wide array of players to work together for the enhancement of student writing and, more broadly, for the empowerment of the writers in our care.