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Student Learning
I have linked three
different types of student writing, in an effort to reveal something of the
quality of work produced in my writing classes.
1.
Shorter pieces of writing by my students are available for viewing in the "Discussion" sections of
the Course D2L sites for Eng 110
(Freshman Composition), Eng 200 (Literature & Human Experience), English 313 (Prose Style & Editing), English 309
(Writing in the Sciences), or UWL 100 (Freshman Seminar).
To access one of these sites,
log on as "guest" with a password of "guest" (no quotation marks, of course).
Then, if there is more than one available, select a semester to look at (you may
have to click on the "+" sign to expand the options, and you'll probably want to
choose the previous semester or
the current semester if it has been in progress for at least 7 weeks). Then
choose a course (probably English 110 or English 313 or English 309)
and go to the "Discussions" section where you'll have to select a forum in which
to read entries. You're free to read any forums, of course, but I suggest
that you select one from the "Individual Entries" section rather than one from
the "Course Functions" section. "Course Function" forums are on top, so
scroll down.
If you're
not familiar with D2L, I suggest that you select all the entries in a forum (by
checking the box in the Subject/Authored by/Date row) and then click on the icon
for "view selected messages in printable format": it's the last icon on the
right, before the "help" icon, just above the Subject/Authored by/Date row.
2. The writing portfolios created by my Eng 413
students are available on
the UWL web
server.
3. The third type of writing sample is the
ethnographies my freshman have been writing: an
assignment that teaches the integration of primary, observational research with
secondary, contextualizing research. Most of them enjoy the assignment and
write relatively long papers (usually more than 10 pages), learning to weave
together narration, context, and analysis. Here are several recent ones:
Emily Hsu, "A
Night of Majhongg"
Andrea Jilbert, "Ten Minutes in the Life OF"
Nikki Frahm, "The Life of a Mechanic"
Pangdra Vang, "Drag Racers"
Kim Holte, "Chaseburg
Fantasy Football League"
Comments on These 3 Types of Evidence of Student Learning
The most general comment has to be that while all these pieces
of student writing may indicate some skill in writing, they don't clearly
indicate what the student learned in the course, since there's no comparison to
how the student was writing before receiving instruction. Nevertheless, I
think they do indicate that students are performing at a high level by the end
of the course or program.
1. You'll find the quality of student writing on D2L is uneven.
However, the entries in these discussion forums—intended for an audience of
peers—are instructed to be transactional: designed and edited to be read
by others. These are not chat rooms: rather, they are places for students to
write for real readers (their classmates). My intention is that they are
engaged in writing similar to what they will actually do as professionals and
engaged citizens. And I think the quality is generally quite good.
To encourage high quality writing, I grade all D2L entries by
assigning a score on a scale of 5. Entries that receive less than a 5 are
accompanied by a note which points out the weaknesses and invites the writer to
edit the entry and receive a second evaluation. This is an artificial incentive
for writing well—I know. But I’m hoping that they get enough of a taste for
real transactional writing that they will apply standards similar to mine when
they don’t have me looking over their shoulders.
2. The quality of the writing in the portfolios compiled by writing
minors and majors is also somewhat uneven. And that unevenness serves a
different purpose: we use these portfolios for program assessment, a group of
us looking over them carefully to determine patterns of strength and weakness in
the work our students produce—patterns we can use as focal points for
strengthening the program.
3. The ethnographies presented are obviously some of
the best. However, most students are doing fairly well with this
assignment. One weakness common to all of those linked above is in the
analytical aspect (most of them are doing quite well with narration). That
weakness in analysis is something I tried to address during the Fall 2005 and
Spring 2006 semesters
by giving early deadlines for narrative sections and then isolating analysis of
their observations and working on it through
concept maps and focused peer reviews.
Portfolio Home
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