Assessment

The WAC program partners with the Office of Undergraduate Education, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning, the Composition Program, and academic units across the university to conduct assessment of student writing at the program level. These efforts help us to understand how student perform as writers and inform curriculum planning and faculty development initiatives.

Some reports and resources related to these efforts are listed below. 

Assessment of Student Writing in the Major

From fall 2017 through fall 2020, George Mason University conducted a broad assessment of its general education program, the Mason Core. As part of this effort, WAC collaborated with the university’s assessment team to assess student writing in the major. The reports below detail the process and results of this assessment.

To learn more about the 2017-2020 assessment cycle and read other reports, please visit Mason’s general education program site.

Council of Writing Program Administrators Assessment Narrative

George Mason University’s Writing Across the Curriculum Program has developed an assessment model that is available on the Council of Writing Program Administrators’ Assessment Gallery Resources page.  As written by former Mason WAC Director Terry Myers Zawacki:

“This assessment model is part of the WPA Assessment Gallery and Resources and is intended to demonstrate how the principles articulated in the NCTE-WPA White Paper on Writing Assessment in Colleges and Universities are reflected in different assessments. Together, the White Paper and assessment models illustrate that good assessment reflect research-based principles rooted in the discipline, is locally determined, and is used to improve teaching and learning.”