Writing Across the Curriculum

In May 2010, the Writing Across the Curriculum Steering Committee endorsed the following proposal.  We expect that departments on campus will begin to pilot this process during 2010-2011.

Proposal for the Assessment of Advanced Expository Writing

The college’s Writing Across the Curriculum Guidelines, drafted originally in 1998 and last revised in 2007, begins by asserting:  “Writing is a process essential to learning” and “basic to the development of self-knowledge.”   We take this to mean that writing, while “a central medium for the clear and efficient exchange of information in all disciplines,” is also a fundamental part of the process of developing ideas.  Academic texts are the in-process records of learning acts, the artifacts of students’ attempts to construct knowledge by wrestling with the central questions, concepts, and methodologies of a discipline.

In keeping with this vision of writing as “a process essential to learning” across disciplines, we propose that the assessment of advanced expository writing at SUNY Oswego be carried out as a part of larger assessments of learning in major fields of study.  Such assessment would begin with the question:  to what extent have majors in a given field begun to write – and thus to think – as members of that field, practicing its habits of mind, understanding the reasons its practitioners typically have for documenting their thoughts, and observing the given set of textual conventions important to it? 

Under this proposal, academic departments and programs would report on their ongoing assessment of the writing of their majors as part of their regular departmental Self-Studies.  If we take the connection between writing, thinking, and disciplinary identity seriously, departments would certainly need to review and assess their students’ written work for Self-Studies in any case.  This assessment should be carried out on work in an upper-division writing-intensive course or in a capstone course that incorporates significant writing, so readers can take the full measure of students’ assimilation into and mastery of the discourse of the field.  Acknowledging that faculty in the field are the only true experts on the writing done in it, we believe that these assessments are best carried out within individual departments and programs.  At the same time, we also encourage interested departments to invite the Writing Across the Curriculum Coordinator and/or members of the WAC Steering Committee to consult with reading committees or even to serve as readers if departments would find this helpful.

In accordance with General Education policy on assessment, departments conducting assessments of advanced expository writing would track the performance of students by applying the customary apparatus of assessment to an appropriate, randomly selected sample of student work in its capstone course, dividing papers into “Exceeding,” “Meeting,” and “Not Meeting” standards with respect to specific predetermined qualities.  In keeping with the spirit of assessment as a mode of improving student learning, however, we would also very much encourage departments to reflect actively on their quantitative findings:  where exactly students fail to reach their expectations, what might be done in curricular terms to improve student work, and whether the department should either shift or more precisely describe its expectations about student writing in any way.

The section of Department Self-Studies addressing Advanced Expository Writing in its majors should include the following:

1.  A rubric, set of criteria, or some other language describing the specific features of writing the department values, along with some discussion of any significant disagreements about these criteria and features among readers. 

2.  A general review of the number and length of papers, types of assignments, and opportunities for instructor-led revision in Writing Plan courses across the term of the assessment.

3.  A reflection on whether the committee or department at large recommends changes either to the Writing Plan or to the way the plan is presently administered.   

The WAC Steering Committee will serve as a resource for departments and programs as they plan and implement any changes they deem necessary and will be available to review and respond to assessments at the request of those departments and programs.