"Transforming WAC Through a Discourse-Based Approach to University Outcomes Assessment"

Bean, John C., David Carrithers, and Theresa Earenfight. “Transforming WAC Through  a Discourse-Based Approach to University Outcomes Assessment.” The WAC Journal 16 (2005): 5-21.

This article reflects on the intersection of two lines of development at Seattle University: a WAC movement that began in the late ‘80s but continued only through pockets of WAC “converts,” and a new call for assessment voiced by the board through a strategic plan.  The primary reason these two strands came together was the engagement of Barbara Walvoord, an assessment consultant with deep roots in WAC practices.  The authors, a WAC luminary, a history professor, and a finance professor, report on the ways that a focus on assessing student outcomes reinvigorated WAC at the university.

Walvoord’s notion of assessment centers on “the course-embedded assignment and on the professional expertise of the individual professor” (6-7).  In her model, professors design assessment rubrics that can be used to identify requisite skills, reveal patterns in student work, and generate material that departments  can use in refining their pedagogy and programs. At the college level, the most common types of assessments are papers or presentations, so her approach has a built-in connection to WAC. 

The article describes two cases in which Walvoord’s approach to outcomes assessment brought WAC principles to the forefront in the history and finance departments.  In these cases, the department identified important skills a student must have upon graduation (e.g., think and speak like a historian, negotiate an ill-defined problem such as retirement investment and offer a solution to lay clients) and then used written assessments to determine student abilities in these areas.  Both cases revealed gaps in regarding vital skills related to invention in the form of critical thinking, rhetorical moves such as discourse-appropriate language and purposeful visual composing, and so on.  In both cases, the department identified a need for additional instruction in rhetoric and composition skills in required courses within the major.  In other words, both assessments brought WAC to the center of the curriculum.

I found this article very useful because of its connections to my situation.  Seattle University’s independent status allowed it to avoid for many years the assessment movement that has swept the nation’s academic institutions, just as my independent school has done.  And just as occurred at SU, my school has been feeling its way toward assessment of student outcomes, but the faculty resists standardized tests as shallow and even harmful assessments of student learning.  Further, much of our faculty, like theirs, guards its autonomy, class time, and principles closely, perceiving standardized tests as threats to all of these.  And like SU, my school has at least the potential to be a culture in which faculty genuinely wants to know its own strengths and areas for growth and does not fear having its weaknesses revealed.  For these reasons the authors’ defense of “discourse-based” assessments as opposed to psychometric ones helps me see a path toward outcomes assessment that contributes to students’ learning and teachers’ development instead of interfering with what is really important in the classroom.  For these reasons, I recommend the article to academic leaders (especially those who value composition) looking for a value-added way to assess outcomes. 

Ostrow's “The Status of WAC in Secondary Public Schools: What Do We Know?”

Ostrow, Vickie S. “The Status of WAC in Secondary Public Schools: What Do We Know?” Writing Across the Curriculum 12 (May 2001): 37-45.

Ostrow’s article acts as an introduction and interim report on her and Dr. Cinthia Gannett’s shared interest in WAC in public secondary schools.  The article begins with a review of literature (both books and articles) related to WAC principles and programs (including writing centers) in secondary schools.  In summarizing the implications of these publications, Ostrow notes that the presence of WAC in the schools often comes in the form of “a few individuals collaborating with like-minded colleagues rather than the outcome of any school-wide or district-wide commitment to WAC philosophy” (38).  Next, the author describes her own pursuit of WAC, facilitated partly by the circumstances of her course assignments and facilities in addition to her own interest.  With context established, Ostrow introduces the circumstances that have led to the article: her work with Dr. Gannett following a WAC summer course attended by secondary school teachers.  The pair designed and distributed a survey in hopes of finding out more about the presence of WAC and writing centers in New Hampshire public schools, but received a very small number of responses.  Despite the limited information, Ostrow offers the results. 

Ostrow makes several observations regarding the results.  First, there is some awareness of WAC principles and writing centers at the secondary level, shown in some cases by teachers’ having received training and in others by schools’ having abandoned programs (awareness is not implementation, after all).  Second, some schools “have had their staff members participate in specific writing-training programs,” in particular one offered by Collins Education Associates (a training Ostrow has attended, as well).  Ostrow describes the program in a way that reveals a focus on consistency and format instead of principles and an emphasis on ease over effectiveness.  In the end, she raises many questions and calls for further research but stops short of actually condemning the program.  Even so, her skepticism about its enactment of WAC principles is clear.  Third, writing centers do exist in some secondary schools, but they are often associated too closely with the computers they house.  Ostrow asserts that technology does not equate to WAC or even a true writing center, and a lack of technology does not preclude them, either.

Ostrow ends by outlining three conclusions.  First, teachers’ greatest need regarding WAC is for more information, including basic principles of WAC practice and guidance on the practicability of WAC.  Second, Ostrow’s questions regarding the presence of WAC in the schools and the best ways to offer support both remain unanswered.  And third, partnerships should be built between schools and college/university writing centers and education programs to promote WAC principles at the secondary level.

I selected this article because I hope to learn more about WAC this semester in order to consider its usefulness in the secondary setting in which I work.  While the article itself is a bit light on generalizable information, it did give me some background information from which to work.  I might recommend it to others with this narrow interest, especially because it is brief enough that one can glean its main points fairly quickly.