The Writing Enhanced program was assessed 2009 and in 2019. Both assessments involved collecting roughly 80% of the existing WE syllabi from across the curriculum. The committee then developed and used a set of criteria to score each syllabus to determine whether the course was aligned with desired WE standards.
The 2019 assessment added qualitative criteria. Through earlier committee work, committee members noted that while many WE courses were aligned with the existing “template” model of WE, based largely on the number of pages students were writing (and to a lesser extent the types of writing they were doing), fewer incorporated the outcomes and objectives the WE philosophy valued.
- students successfully communicate ideas to target audiences;
- students successfully use writing to think through and organize ideas;
- students successfully use writing to discover the known and unknown;
- students engage in the use of writing to reflect on recent experiences; and
- students further develop healthy writing habits and process.
The committee further recognized that these outcomes and objectives could not be achieved without a certain minimum of response and guidance from the WE instructors.
With all of that in mind, the committee developed an additional set of WE criteria to assess existing courses: Product, Process, and Cognition. We asked to what extent the course materials indicated a satisfactory incorporation of the target qualities. We also asked whether WE was being explained sufficiently to students reading the syllabus.
The results were mixed. The 2019 WE Assessment can be read here. In summary, we found that most WE syllabi did not explain Writing Enhanced very well. We also found that roughly a third of existing WE-designated courses did not incorporate WE outcomes and objectives sufficiently. Based on these results, the committee developed a set of recommendations, the most important of which was to adopt the qualitative criteria as the official criteria.