TEXTS:
Cooper/Odell. EVALUATING WRITING.
Diederich. MEASURING GROWTH IN ENGLISH.
Shaughnessy. ERRORS AND EXPECTATIONS.
Trachsel. INSTITUTIONALIZING LITERACY.
White. TEACHING AND ASSESSING WRITING.
Witte/Faigley. EVALUATING COLLEGE WRITING PROGRAMS.
(Additional Articles at Copy Center, in the Univ. Center)
Course Description/Objectives:
This seminar in Evaluation (i.e., in the assessment of writing) will be conducted as a seminar in criticism. In other terms, evaluation will be revalued.
The seminar will be conducted in two phases:
1. The seminar participants will read, study, and discuss some of the available literature on the evaluation/assessment of (a) student writing done by individual students and by large groups of students; on the evaluation/assessment of (b) the teaching of writing; (c) and on the evaluation/assessment of the administering of writing programs. (2/3 of time)
2. The seminar will reconsider this literature with the purpose of critiquing it. We will examine specifically such questions as "Is the assessment of writing a benevolent activity?", "Is assessment necessarily bias in relation to race, culture, and gender?", and "If so, what can be done, if anything, to revise the present methods of evaluation?", "Is assessment for the good of the students/faculty or is it primarily good for the administrative/managerial class (local, state, and federal)?", "Is the huge amount of public funds spent on assessment worth spending?", etc. (1/3 of time).
GRADES: Several reports 1/3; three brief papers 2/3. (I will give you the details of what I expect as we proceed.) I will give absolutely no incompletes. (Work missed or handed in late will be graded down by letter grades; work not handed in will be double "F"s. If all the course work is not completed satisfactorily, I will give you an "F" for the course.) Please take this policy seriously; I do.
ATTENDANCE: Three cuts and I will drop you. (If you have official excuses, you must go through the official procedure [see the student handbook]; please do not give your excuses to me.)
SYLLABUS:
JAN........ 19 Introduction to course and "field": Expectations and Problems
26 Some important general background articles for this course: Berlin/Inkster, "Current-Traditional Rhetoric: Paradigm and Practice"; Berlin, "Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class"; Coles, from The Plural I; Bartholomae, "Inventing the University." (I will mention others as we proceed.)
FEB.......... 2 Some important specific articles in field: Horvath, "The Components of Written Response: A Practical Synthesis of Current Views"; Lindemann, "Ch. 13 Making and evaluating writing assignments" in a Rhetoric for Writing Teachers.
ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT WRITING (INDIVIDUAL AND EN MASSE)
9 Diederich, MEASURING GROWTH IN ENGLISH; Cooper/Odell, EVALUATING WRITING
16 White, TEACHING AND ASSESSING WRITING.
23 same
THE BASIC WRITER (Attitudes Towards)
March......2 SHAUGHNESSY, ERRORS AND EXPECTATIONS
9 contd. Shaughnessy. Bartholomae, "The Study of Error"; and "Inventing the University"; Williams, "The Phenomenology of Error"; Bizzell, "What Happens When Basic Writers Come to College?"; Connors and Lunsford, "Frequency of Formal Errors in Current College Writing"
16 Sledd, "In Defense of the Students' Rights"; Brannon/Knoblauch, "On Students' Rights to Their Own Texts"; Brodkey, "On the Subjects of Class and Gender in 'The Literacy Letters' "
ASSESSMENT OF WRITING INSTRUCTION
30 CCCC Committee, "Evaluating Instruction in Writing" (assessment of your own teaching); from Davis/Scriven/Thomas, THE EVALUATION OF COMPOSITION INSTRUCTION.
April...... 6 same, Davis/Scriven/Thomas
ASSESSMENT OF WRITING PROGRAMS
13 Witte/Faigley, EVALUATING COLLEGE WRITING PROGRAMS
20 same
ASSESSMENT OF ASSESSMENT
27 Trachsel, INSTITUTIONALIZING LITERACY
May....... 4 same
[Please note that I have purposefully excluded Leter Faigley, et al.,'s Assessing Writers' Knowledge and Processes of Composing, and Karen L. Greenberg, et al.'s Writing Assessment: Issues and Strategies, because both books are extremely expensive. You may wish, however, to look at them in the library. I had especially intended to have you purchase Davis/Scriben/Thomas's THE EVALUATION OF COMPOSITION, but the book is now only available in hardback and is too expensive. As you will note, however, I have placed at the copy center a section of this book (pp. 109-49) for us to think/talk about. There are two other especially important articles that are often cited/discussed, but I decided this time not to include them in the syllabus though you can find them at the copy center under my name and Engl. 4370: Murray, "Teaching the Other Self: The Writer's First Reader"; and Sommer, "Responding to Student Writing."]
Rhetoric Seminars
Rhetoric, Composition, Critical Theory HP & Program
The ENGLISH HOME PAGE
Victor J. Vitanza's HP.