At a glance:

Faculty support from WAC
Karlson shares best practices--model of an assignment in stages
Nursing portfolio gains popularity

The WAC Program invites professorial faculty to apply for grants that will support assessment projects, research in new techniques of writing instruction, etc. Application deadline is March 18, 2002.  Go to <http://www.engl.niu.edu/wac/ciuewac.html>  Send the application to: Writing Across the Curriculum Program, English Department, Reavis Hall 215.

The WAC Program also invites professorial faculty, supportive professional staff, and instructors to participate in the May 23-24 workshop to redesign a course that implements instruction for writing in the major. Deadline is April 1, 2002. Go to <http://www.engl.niu.edu/wac/wmworkshop.html>  Send the application—along with supportive materials—to the above address. The $500 stipend may be matched by applicant’s college or department.

Direct questions to the WAC Coordinator, 753-6718 or bpeters@niu.edu.

     Good assignments tell students our expectations. However, we rarely have the chance to see our colleagues’ examples of such assignments. Stephen Karlson in Economics has permitted the Newsletter to show how he uses his term paper assignment to provide writing instruction for students in ECON 420: Antitrust Economics. He wisely breaks his assignment into stages: (1) topic selection, (2) outlining, (3) drafting, (4) receiving feedback, and (5) revising. His rubric for grading shows students what criteria they must satisfy.

     Below are the full text of Karlson’s assignment and the rubric he uses:

Stage 1, Outlining: The purpose of an outline is to give yourself a working plan that will make the actual writing and rewriting of the research paper easier.

     In a previous assignment, you identified a research topic that you wanted to pursue further. My observations at that time were intended to help you develop and limit your topic. A topic that is properly developed is one that appeals to you, because you are going to be devoting resources to researching it, and that appeals to me, because I have responsibility for your intellectual progress. A topic that is properly limited is one that you are able to complete in the time allowed.

     For this stage of the assignment, your responsibility is to prepare an outline of the research project you are doing. This outline may be arranged as a topic outline or as a sentence outline. For instance, a topic outline of your assignment might look like the following:

The Problem: Developing an Outline.
I. Preparations
     A. Identify ideas that bear on the topic
     B. Arrange ideas into logical order

II The Outline
     A. Make sure the outline covers the subject
     B. Make sure that the parts of the outline are  arranged logically
           1. Group related ideas
           2. Arrange parts in a logical order
           3. Do not allow topic headings to overlap
           4. Get advice on the mechanics.
      C. Check your work for notation, indentation,  parallel structure

     The division of main topics and subtopics that you adopt may be different from the division that I presented above. Note that I have followed the convention that a topic divided into subtopics has more than one subtopic.  If your outline includes topics with only one subtopic, check your logic: perhaps the subtopic refines the main topic.

     The Writing Center is available as a resource for developing outlines. The people there will not write your outline for you, but they can offer additional advice on developing outlines and check your work.  Use their office wisely as there is a one-week deadline on this part of the project. Outlines submitted with evidence that you worked with the Writing Center will receive one point of extra credit (thus potentially 31 points on a 30 point assignment).

Stage 2, Drafting: A "first draft" of a paper is different from attempting to write the first four or five pages of your paper. It is probably a bad idea to attempt to start by composing a perfect first sentence and continuing from there. Snoopy on his doghouse typing  "It was a dark and stormy night"  is a cartoon! It is probably an urban legend that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote down "In the valley there lived a Hobbit" and the rest followed from there.
     Consider the following approach instead.

1. You have received back an outline with my comments on it.
2. You have done some library research and located some other people's writings on your problem.
3. You have some ideas of your own about how those writings support your own prior beliefs about the problem you're working on.
4. If you're really lucky, you have identified writings that compel you to rethink those prior beliefs.

     Congratulations!  You're on the way to developing a first draft.  Using your thesis statement from Problem Set I and from your outline, organize the ideas that your library research has turned up into "supports my belief" and "makes me think."  What principal arguments stand out?  Can you arrange them into greater and lesser importance?  (Here's where the outline helps.)  Get your ideas on paper. You have just roughed out what the professors call a "literature review." (I know, it's an ugly term, academic writing isn't exactly literary).
 
Now start applying some economics to those arguments. Do the arguments make economic sense? Do you see rational actors pursuing gains from trade? Do you see rational actors profiting by denying others their gains from trade? Do you see wishful thinking? Or are you not at all sure what to make of what you've read?  Draft some answers to those questions. Get them on paper. You have just begun the analysis of the arguments and the evidence, which is the guts of the paper. For the present, don't worry too much about whether the analysis is orderly, it's a first draft. And if it doesn't make economic sense, it's a first draft, and I want to know about the problems you're facing.

     Notice that I haven't said anything about introductions or conclusions. Grasp the dimensions of the scholarly disagreements (the literature review) and the quality of the arguments (the analysis). Next comes the conclusion. Finally comes the introduction. Seriously. Until you know that the traveler whose car breaks down is going to leave a clue to the murder in the mud out back, you have no reason to begin on a stormy night. So I don't want to see any introductions in the first draft.  Tentative conclusions maybe. But devote your efforts to framing the argument.

     Verify the above with my colleagues at the Writing Center. There will be two extra credit points for working with them on the first draft, thus a potential score of 32 on a 30 point assignment.

Stage 3, Term Paper Checklist: As you complete your term papers for submission on Wednesday, 5 December, please consider the following:

1. Are you satisfied with the support you give to the argument you are   advancing?  Are there any weak points that require further support, or recognition that the point might call for further work?  Have you provided references to any cases, articles, or primary evidence either in footnotes or in the bibliography?

2. Is the paper's structure sound?  Does each paragraph move your argument forward?  Are the paragraphs structured properly?  Is there any material that you could exclude because it's tangential (potentially interesting, but it doesn't support your main points) or irrelevant (neither interesting nor supportive)?

3. Are you using the right words?  Have you written in complete sentences?  Do subjects and verbs agree?  If you used a computer spell-checker, have you checked for errors the spell-checker won't catch, such as "there" for "their" or "to" for "too"?

4. Have you given yourself enough time to work on your final draft so that you won't be hurrying to finish it late Monday or early Tuesday let alone Wednesday morning?

     The Writing Center is still available as a resource, and there will be two extra credit points for documented evidence that you have worked with them on your final draft. Good luck! I look forward to receiving your efforts on Wednesday, December 5.

Stage 4, Application of Rubric for Term Paper Scoring:

1. Originality: the paper topic is a challenging idea.   5-4-3-2-1

2. Clarity: the reader can identify both thesis and purpose of research.  5-4-3-2-1 
 
3. Organization: the work fully supports the thesis and purpose, presents effective argument. 5-4-3-2-1 

4. Antitrust Relevance: the topic is suitable to the course content. 5-4-3-2-1 

5. Analysis: there is solid economics supporting the research.  5-4-3-2-1

6. Open-Mindedness: the researcher understands objections raised by other  researchers.  5-4-3-2-1

7. Use of sources: the researcher recognizes strengths and weaknesses of other work on this topic . 5-4-3-2-1

8. Progress: the researcher addresses questions raised on outline and first draft.  5-4-3-2-1

9. Mechanics: the paper is well-written.   5-4-3-2-1

10. Exposition: the argument is easy to follow.    5-4-3-2-1
 

The School of Nursing has revised its current system of assessing student writing on a large scale. A portfolio committee has coordinated with faculty in developing a new rubric whose criteria reflect the goals of the Nursing Program. Last semester, faculty tested the rubric on three model portfolios, each containing common types of writing that all students in nursing must do: a case study, a research paper, and a concept map.

The faculty found a strong consistency in ranking the portfolios. Discussion of professors’ reasons for ranking the portfolios led to valuable insights about what good writing means in the field. The ranking of the portfolios occurred on a scale of 3 to 1 (3= exceeds expectations; 2=meets expectations; 1=doesn’t meet expectations). Here are the criteria for the rubric:

1. The student’s portfolio demonstrates an ability to gather appropriate data, analyze a situation, and formulate an appropriate diagnosis/conclusion.       3—–2—–1

2. The student’s portfolio demonstrates an ability to transfer information or apply principles from one context to another in establishing therapeutic nursing interventions or in developing implications for professional nursing.       3—–2—–1

3. The student’s portfolio demonstrates an ability to evaluate the effectiveness of therapeutic nursing interventions, conclusions drawn from professional resources, or other kinds of decision making.  3—–2—–1

4. The student’s portfolio demonstrates an ability to develop logical arguments or cases.       3—–2—–1

5. The student’s portfolio demonstrates awareness of readers in the nursing field in terms of APA documentation, grammar and spelling, format, and professional vocabulary.       3—–2—–1

6. The student’s portfolio demonstrates an ability to reflect upon what the student has learned and still needs to learn.       3—–2—–1

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1= very difficult; 10= very easy), faculty rated use of the rubric at a 7.5 and ease of the ranking process at a 6.5. In April, Nursing faculty will run a pilot test, ranking a collection of actual student portfolios.  Enthusiasm for implementing the system runs high.