Appendix 2

Critical Writing and Reading Core
Assessment Plan

Learning Outcomes

All syllabi for INTD 105 will include on the first page the following intended learning outcomes for INTD 105:

Students who have taken INTD 105 Writing Seminar will demonstrate:

  1. The ability to read significant texts carefully and critically, recognizing and responding to argumentative positions.
  2. The ability to write sustained, coherent, and persuasive arguments on significant issues that arise from the content at hand.
  3. The ability to write clearly, following the conventions of Standard English.

Data Collection

  1. All faculty will collect from the students in their sections of INTD 105 one essay, unmarked, written toward the end of the term (the instructor may choose the fifth or sixth essay). Students will be asked to submit their essays with a cover sheet that contains the following information: Name, Student Identification Number, Term, and Instructor's name. No other identifying information should be on the paper. The cover sheets will be separated from the essays when they are read by the assessment team.

Assessment Strategy

  1. Each term, an assessment team will be assigned in teams to evaluate fifty randomly selected essays (e.g., ten faculty members, paired in five teams, would read ten papers each). The selected essays will be prepared, probably by a department secretary, by inscribing the student identification number on the essay's first page, and removing the cover sheet.
  2. The selected essays will be evaluated by the term's "assessment team," composed of faculty who teach INTD 105, on a rotating basis. The assessment team must be able to meet as a group to do this reading to ensure a coordinated application of the scoring rubric. The date of the assessment, as well as the assessment team, will be announced at the beginning of each semester. Team members with schedule conflicts should arrange to find a substitute team member, in consultation with the Chair of the Critical Writing and Reading Core Committee.
  3. The essays will be evaluated and assigned a set of numerical scores by reading them against a standard rubric (see attached).

Reporting

  1. All INTD 105 faculty will have an opportunity to meet and discuss the course at the beginning of each semester. Faculty who have served on assessment teams are asked to keep notes and report their impressions of students' strengths and weaknesses in meeting the Critical Writing and Reading Core's learning outcomes, as evidenced by the assessed essays. Faculty will be encouraged to use the results of the assessment as they think about the sections of the course they will teach. This means that although the Faculty are mandated to review the course after it has been taught for three years and every three years thereafter, faculty may adjust their individual sections on a regular basis.
  2. The Chair of the Critical Writing and Reading Core Committee will write a brief summary report each semester explaining the scores revealed by the semester's assessment process.
  3. The data and summaries will be filed in the Office of the Dean of the College. At least every three academic years (six semesters), the Dean (or someone else appointed by the Provost) will evaluate the collected data, in consultation with the CWRCC Chair. Their evaluation should be reported to the College Senate through a written report sent to the Curricular Policy Committee of the Senate.
  4. The Critical Writing and Reading Core Faculty, in consultation with the Dean of the College, should respond to the written report on the three-year data collection by proposing appropriate changes to the Critical Writing and Reading Core.