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Assessing Growth in Student Writers from Introductory Composition through Writing-Intensive Courses in the Majors Reported by Sarah Baker, WAC Assistant In 2000, Virginia’s higher education institutions were required by the State Council of Higher Education (SCHEV) to assess and report on written communication, as one of six core competencies. Mason proposed ongoing department-based, faculty-led assessment of representative samples of student writing in the major according to a discipline-specific rubric developed in a holistic scoring workshop. In 2007, SCHEV issued a new mandate for “value-added assessment measures [that] indicate progress, or lack thereof, as a consequence of the student’s institutional experience.” In response, Mason incorporated our ongoing assessment procedures into a new plan, which includes a common definition of overall written competence that will be used for both pre- and post-assessments of student writing. The pre-assessment measures will focus on random samples of researchbased essays written in introductory composition classes. The postassessment will continue to take place in departments with papers selected from writing-intensive courses and scored according to criteria developed by departmental faculty. The checklist below, compiled by Ying Zhou, Associate Director of Institutional Assessment, is a compilation of criteria that have recurred across departmental rubrics. Beginning in fall 2008, all preand post-assessment rubrics will include the same four-level rating for assessing overall competence in written communication: Highly Competent, Competent, Emerging, and Not Competent College- Level Writing. |