Writing Program Annual Report – 2013

Introduction:

Overall Program Goals for 2013Goals for 2013 Program DevelopmentIn January 2013 we developed a list of goals for the year. The list below offers a brief update on those goals, noting our progress in each area.

Complete our ENG 145 Program Assessment. o Note: Instructors administered the assessment to all sections of ENG

145 and 145.13 in fall 2013. Our preliminary report on the 145 assessment will be completed in January, 2014, but we will continue to use this data for a range of projects in 2014. For example, we’ll be presenting research at the 2014 CCC conference in Indianapolis about our plan to make ongoing data available to students (for use as part of their coursework) in ENG 101 and ENG 145 classes.

Prepare for our ENG 101 Program Assessment (Spring 2014): o NOTE: This assessment is also on schedule. We’ll be completing a

full assessment of all ENG 101 classes by the end of Spring 2014, and will be completing different kinds of data analysis during the summer months.

Continue our Program Coalescence (which assesses our teaching from the faculty perspective and documents the types of activities that our courses include):

o NOTE: The data from our January 2014 coalescence survey (just completed) indicates that the program is becoming significantly more “cohesive” compared to the data we collected in January 2013. We’re pleased to note that in several important areas:

Frequent use and explicit teaching of specific key terms and concepts by 80-90 percent of instructors.

Increase in the number of teachers who teach explicit types research methods as part of the course.

Increase (above 80%) in the number of instructors who are specifically assigning at least one large research project that requires substantive writing (more than 8 pages) and academic citation in various forms.

We’ve also identified several important areas for future professional development:

Developing curriculum that allows instructors to incorporate more learning about quantitative and qualitative data in their courses.

Working to identify different kinds of “uptake genres” (which we call “proof-of-learning” documents) that allow students to document and articulate their own understanding of their learning in the course.

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Discussion ways to incorporate “threshold concepts” as a way to help students access their learning (to remember what they’ve learned and be able to use that knowledge in new settings) in classes they take after ENG 101.

Complete an interactive report on our Information Literacy Assessments that can be used by teachers and students:

o Note: This activity was completed in Fall 2013. The reports (along with other data we’re collecting) will be part of a 2014 goal to create usable data about student learning from a variety of collection resources and offer instructors the opportunity to use these materials in their ENG 101 and ENG 145 courses (see Research Resources Project description).

Design and make public our new “Research Resources” page: o NOTE: We haven’t completed this task.

Complete our first Grassroots Writing Research Journal Special Issue on “Bridging Genre Studies: K-12 to University”:

o NOTE: This project has changed significantly – we are working instead on a “Commonplace Book” that can be used as an additional text in our ENG 101 and ENG 145 courses. Our goal is to complete the first issue of this new text by the end of Fall 2014.

Finalize Speaker for Fall 2013 & Spring 2014 Speaker Series: o NOTE: We invited Anis Bawarshi for our 2013 speaker series and his

was a very successful visit. We’ve invited Jody Shipka to be the fall speaker for 2014.

Make progress on our Collaboration with the Visor Center relating to mentoring 101 students

o NOTE: We have not made significant progress on this project although we have met with the Visor Center to develop a plan for training tutors to work with ENG 101 students. We don’t expect this training to be in place before Fall 2014.

Complete addition to our instructor resources, including: Formative assessment Summative Assessment Global Communications and Writing Research Lesson Planning Teaching Students to do writing Research

Complete Additional Student Resources, Including: Student Handout on CHAT Becoming A Writing Researcher Welcome to the Writing Program (for 101 and 145 – this will be part of our

program coalescence project, helping students to understand how the course is coherent and useful to them in other academic and non-academic settings)

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Understanding the Writing Program’s Problem-Solving Assessment Breaking Down the Learning Outcomes (handouts) – This will include

address the new Gen Ed. Outcomes

NOTE on Resource Development : A full description of the resources we’ve developed will be available as part of the spring 2013 and fall 2013 sections of this report. However, we have completed some of these resources, while others are still underway.

Make final decisions about several projects that have been problematic in their execution. These include:

Starting a Center for Writing Research and Pedagogy Continuation of the Multimodal Composition and Community Action Project The Good Day Archive

Note: We’ve decided to discontinue all of these projects. Make final decisions about how/where to house resources for instructors that need to

be accessed with a password (i.e. confidential reports, examples of student work, etc.). While we currently maintain the ISU Writing Archive, there may be some software options that work better for storing and sharing this information.

Note: We’ve moved most of our resources onto a ReggieNet site for ISU program instructors. We are currently (spring 2014) working on www.isuwriting.com site to link to these resources (which will then only be accessible to instructors on the ReggieNet site.

Create a clear procedure for gathering, storing and reviewing Instructor course plans

Note: We have created this plan. Each semester now we gather all the course syllabi from writing program instructors and store in an online database. Nancy McKinney completes a report that reviews the course plans for adherence to our learning outcomes and requirements. Thus we have a record of all courseplans and a review that assures instructor’s compliance with our basic program goals and requirements.

Create a better evaluation for students to use for ENG 101 courses (the current university model is not acceptable and doesn’t provide enough information).

Note: We have created this evaluation (one for both mid-term and end-of-the-semester). New Instructors in Fall 2014 will be using this evaluation system.

Begin implementation of our Longitudinal Assessment Plan (Spring 2013)

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Note: We’ve decided to begin implementation of this plan in Fall 2014, following the spring 2013 program-wide assessment for ENG 101.

Additional ActivitiesIn additional to our stated goals, there were several other projects that became

important to us in 2013. They include the following (which are described in more detail in the report):

The Restructuring of ENG 101.10 course and consulting activities for the course Ongoing K-12 and Community College Outreach projects Program Podcasts Grassroots Writing Research Annual Colloquium Swtiching from STV 250 folders to the Reggienet CMS system (accomplished by Fall

2013).

Advisory BodiesThe following groups help to shape and develop the Writing Program’s activities:

The Writing Program Leadership Team: The WPLT Committee is the advisory body for the Writing Program. The committee includes the Center for Writing Research and Pedagogy Research Assistants, the Writing Program Assistants, the Director, and the Assistant Director.The Critical Inquiry Committee: The Critical Inquiry Committee also acts as an advisory body for the writing program. Headed by the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Sally Parry, the committee includes members from the Writing Program, the Speech Communication program, and the Library.The Writing Committee: The Writing Committee serves as a departmental advisory body for the Writing Program. Committee members focus on reviewing our annual reports and our goals for each year and making suggestions for improvements and connections with the department and the larger university populations.

Affiliated OrganizationsJulia N. Visor Center: The Visor Center works with undergraduate writers and so continue to be a potential source of collaboration for us.The Milner Library: We continued our relationship with Jennifer Sharkey, the lead instructional librarian at Milner. Our work with Milner focuses on three areas: (1) Developing resources for students, (2) Developing resources for instructors, and (3) research students’ information literacy and using collected data to improve our resources.

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PublicationsAs we’ve developed our goals for the Writing Program, we have developed the following publications to serve as the core texts that help us to meet student and instructor goals, as well to serve targeted populations outside of the writing program that we’ve identified.

The ISU Writing Website: www.isuwriting.com. The ISU writing website is a “quick look” space for readers to find out about new programs and events, and to get materials. It was originally designed to serve the instructors in the writing program specifically, but our goal is to extend the use of the site to writing instructors in other programs (and potentially citizen writing researchers). In general, this site is not targeted to students, although it is open and accessible to them and they do use resources from this site (such as links to handouts or to archived issues of the GWRJ.

The Grassroots Writing Research Journal: This journal is designed to provide a venue for writing researchers of all kinds – within and outside of the university. Expansion of our author-base and creating resources for authors within and beyond the writing program are important goals. Our long-term goals for this text (and the website we are planning for 2013) will be to serve the following audiences (and promote their use of and contribution to the journal):

Instructors in the Writing Program Students in the Writing Program Students who have participated in the Writing Program who are moving on

to other kinds of writing situations in and outside of school Citizens locally and regionally who are engaged in interesting and

challenging writing practices Writing instructors and students in other programs (nationally and

internationally) The ISU Writing Archive: This Site is a location where we can store data relevant

to both ongoing program materials for the writing program. We are currently using it primarily for data that we don’t want to put on our public site – but we also continue to seek out ways to make the resources we create more searchable – so that instructors who aren’t 100% sure of what they need will be able to explore and find resources. Current resources in the archive include:

Sample course plans for 101 and 145 Annotated Bibliography of articles related to our genre studies pedagogical

model Sample descriptions of genres that students and instructors might explore

Teaching Resources: We also continue to develop specific resources to serve teacher and student needs in the Writing Program. This year our goal has been to develop print-based resources that are useful for instructors beyond the introductory materials we provide for new instructors. We’ve focused on two different categories of handouts – one set is designed to explain important concepts to writing instructors, and the other set is designed to provide explanations to students. For both categories, the goal is for the texts to be usable across different sections of the course (which are taught differently). These resources are published on the www.isuwriting.com site.

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Research & Reports: The Writing Program is continually engaged in different kinds of research and data collection to help us better understand our various constituencies. Reports are generally published on our www.isuwriting.com site.

ISU Writing Instructors on ReggieNet: This site, developed in 2013, allows us to post resources for instructors that we don’t want to make available to the public. Our goal now is to create descriptions for these resources for our www.isuwriting.com site, with links that only allow access to our instructors (so other viewers and see and read abstracts of available resources, but only our instructors can see password protected materials). This also allows us to highlight resources for ISU students on our site, but without allowing them to link to materials that may not be appropriate for students.

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Section I: Spring Semester 2013

Program Staff for Spring 2013Members of the Writing Program Leadership Team Committee:

Joyce Walker, Director Nancy McKinney, Assistant Director Maegan Gaddis, Office Manager Summer Qabazard, Community Outreach Emily Johnston, K-12 Outreach Elizabeth Williams, 101 Coordinator Moria Torrington, 101.10 Coordinator Chereka Dickerson, 145 Coordinator Amy Hicks, Professional Development Coordinator Ryan Edel, Technology Coordinator Sarah Hercula, Grassroots Writing Research Journal Associate Editor

NOTE: For Semester Reports for each WPLT graduate team member, See Appendices A (spring 2013) & E (fall 2013).

ConsultantsThe Writing Program uses graduate assistants as consultants to work on specific tasks additional to our WP team positions. In the Spring of 2013, we worked with consultants on various tasks:

Lisa Lindenfelser, Josette Lorig, Kelsey Forkner: These M.A. level students all did work for the Grassroots Writing Research journal as editors in spring 2013.

Activities During Spring 2013The Spring Professional Development Event (Writing Summit)We continue to use our “Writing Summit” model for the professional development days at the beginning of each semester. These events have been well-received, with 69.2 rating the event in the top two categories and 0% indicating that they didn’t find the event useful (see graphic below, and for full survey, see Appendix B).

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Restructuring of ENG 101.10In Spring 2013, we began work to further restructure our ENG 101.10 course. Moria Torrington, the 101.10 coordinator led this project, working to develop a new plan for consultants (rather than co-teachers) to move into a process of one-on-one and small group tutoring rather than the teacher/co-teacher system that had been in place. We developed the plan, along with various resources for teachers and consultants, with the goal of implementing changes in the fall of 2013. This process including creating a whole range of resources for both teachers and consultants. For more details on this restructuring, see Appendix C.

Restructuring and Continuing Professional Development Resources:In Spring 2013, we focused on revisiting our professional development resources. While some of our practices have been very successful, other activities and resources get little use – events are not well-attended, and resources from these face-to-face events are not recorded in ways that make them available to instructors who can’t (or choose not to) attend face-to-face events. Our review led us to keep certain aspects of our Professional Development intact, while dropping or altering other events.

Ongoing Instructor Assistance: The one-on-one assistance we offer instructors during the spring semester remained the same as in previous years. Spring semester is less hectic than fall for our program course coordinators in 101 and 101.10 (because we have less inexperienced instructors to work with during these semesters). The 145 coordinator usually has between 3-5 new instructors and 101 works with between 10-12 new instructors during Spring semester (we don’t have new instructors for 101.10 in the Spring semester). However, we continue to offer assistance to all the writing program instructors – with advice on course issues, etc. The Director, Assistant Director, and Program Course Coordinators provide most of the one-on-one mentoring to instructors, but all of the WPLT does some of this work.

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Coffee Klatches: We held these events in spring 2013, but began to consider options for replacing these events with other types of Professional Development opportunities. Amy Hicks, the Professional Development coordinator, scheduled and facilitated several of these events, along with “brown bag” lunch events.

Tech Time Sessions: Ryan Edel, the Technology Coordinator offered fewer of these sessions in the spring semester, while increasing offering of one-on-one meetings for instructors, as we attempted to move instructors away from the “STV 250” folder system and towards use of the new ReggieNet system. Ryan also worked to add resources to our program blog (see www.isuwriting.com).

ISU Speaker Series: We hosted visiting speaker Ann Johns, a writing research scholar recently retired from UC San Diego. We also planned for a Fall 2013 visit from Anis Bawarshi. We made the decision in 2013 to move the speaker series to Fall semester, and to have one speaker per year.

Grassroots Journal: The Grassroots Writing Research journal is one of the most important activities we focus on each semester. We have this process fairly structured at this point; We followed our established practices for the publication of issues 4.1 and 4.2.

The Writing Researcher’s CommonPlace BooK: As our understanding of the needs of our program has evolved, it has become clear that instructors in our program (and others in programs outside of ISU who are interested in genre studies and activity theory approaches to writing pedagogy) would find it useful to have a text that outlines the actual practices that writers can engage in in order to become “writing researchers.” As a result, we began in spring 2013 to discuss the creation of a “Writing Researcher’s Commonplace Book” that would be a supplemental text (produced online) for students in 101 and 145, but would also be available for sale through Amazon.com. Discussions about this potential project continued in Fall 2013.

Program Podcasts: In spring 2013 we carefully considered the problems surrounding the development of resources for instructors. While we’re doing fine in providing resources such as activities, syllabi, assessment methods (which we make available to new instructors each year) we’re having trouble encouraging instructors to participate in ongoing professional development that focuses on the dissemination of various terms and concepts critical to our program including the alternative assessment of learning, the understand of genre studies and activity theory concepts, and teaching of different kinds of research skills. The primary problem seems to be one of time. Instructors in the program are aware that these are important issues, and indeed they request Professional Development events that will focus on these areas. However, when we hold these events we often have very poor attendance. As a result, we worked to develop a plan to create “Writing Program Podcasts” where the topic is discussed by several participants in a “round-table” manner, similar to many popular podcasts. The sessions are open to the public and a Q&A and discussion follow the taping of the podcast. In the spring of 2013, Amy Hicks did research on the genres of podcasts, and the technology resources we’d need to create these resources. We completed a podcast on “teaching ENG 145” as an experimental project during this semester.

Community-Outreach ProjectsIn Spring 2013 we spent some significant time considering the potential populations outside of the Writing Program instructors and students with which we would like to interact. Possible groups include the following:

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Undergraduate Writing Research Scholarship: The UWRS program funded one student with a scholarships ($250.00). We awarded one scholarship in 2012/13. In return for the funding, the student created extended an writing research project, presented the work at a colloquium in April, 2013, and produced an article for the Grassroots Journal on the research topic.

Writing Research Colloquia: We also began an annual event, in which Grassroots authors we asked to “reprise” their articles, talking about their ongoing understanding of the article they’d produced, and new knowledge they might have gained about the topic since the writing of the original article. Our Grassroots Writing Research Scholar, Abby O’Ryan also presented on her research at this event. Further, we were able to videotape the talks and then make the videos available on our ReggieNet site, so that teachers can use the talks in coordination with the articles in future semesters.

Community Writing for the Grassroots Journal: This ongoing effort to encourage authors—especially outside of the writing program—to produce articles for the GWRJ continued. Two PAs worked with the local chapter of the NAACP to design an informational brochure about the chapter to be distributed to the community; plans are ongoing to create a newsletter template and ultimately write a GWRJ article on collaborative writing in community organizations.

High School Outreach: As part of our work to continue discussions with high school instructors, we participated in two events. The first was to present at the 2013 “Celebrating Language Arts” conference in Wheaton, IL. The second was to attend the annual meeting of the Metro-East High School Librarian’s conference, where we were able to exchange ideas and present our program philosophy and goals to 20 high school librarians from the St. Louis Metro-East area.

Writing Program Research Projects 101 & 145 Program Assessments: We completed a full draft of the assessment

plan (including all logistics for implementation) and presented it to teachers in Spring 2014. We also prepared writing scenarios for the assessment (Chereka Dickerson) as well as an entire range of resources to help instrtuctors and students understand and complete the assessment (Joyce Walker and Chereka Dickerson). See the Appendices for copies of these documents. By the end of Spring 2013 we were prepared for the 145 assessment. Fall 2013 will include work to prepare for the 101 assessment.Information Literacy Research (ongoing): We collected additional information on student research practices (program-wide in Eng 101) and added this research to the data that we’ve already collected. For more information on the 101 and 145 Program Assessments, see Appendix D.Research Presentations: Writing Program Leadership team members presented at the CCC Conference in Las Vegas, NV. The title of our presentations was, “Supporting Integrated Writing Research Through Rhizomatic Literate Activity” and was presented by former WPLT member Kristi McDuffie, and Current members Summer Qabazard and Emily Johnston, along with Joyce Walker

Section II: Summer Semester 2013During the summer session in 2013 there were several projects that continued from Spring semester. We used graduate students as consultants for a range of projects.

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ConsultantsChereka Dickerson, Moria Torrington, Sarah Hercula, Meghann Meussen: These Ph.D. students worked on writing program tasks (the program assessment – Chereka; the restructuring of our ENG 101.10 course – Moria; the Grassroots Journal Editing – Meghann and Sarah. In addition Joyce Walker complete a range of different tasks during the summer, including creating new resources for instructors, revising the ISU Instructor’s Guide, working with new graduate students and upervising graduate student workers.

Summer Tasks Summer Preparation for New Instructor Orientation: The summer preparation

for our New Instructor Orientation (which takes place each August, in the two weeks before the semester begins) requires a significant portion of summer work hours. In summer 2012, the following activities took place:

Revision to our Instructor’s Guide Compilation of a range of resources for New Instructors Implementing a New Instructor Survey to learn about the experiences and

knowledge of the new instructors Answering questions, via phone and email about the program and the

expectations for new instructors Planning and organizing the actual schedule and activities for the

orientation Finalizing the restructuring of the ENG 101.10 course. Creating resources for the 101.10 consultants Creating “bridge building project” that would be administered by all of the

101.10 instructors. Planning for Fall 2013 Writing Summit: Since the Fall Writing Summit (our main

professional development for returning and new instructors) takes place on the two days prior to the start of the semester, some of the planning for this even takes place in the summer. Summer work usually includes contacting presenters, finalizing the program, ordering food and organizing the spaces. However, it also includes a final review of new resources, and work to make sure the resources are available and in place before the event begins. This work was completed by both the outgoing PD coordinator (Amy Hicks) and our new PD Coordinator (Chamere Poole).

Resources for ENG 101 and 101.10 Instructors: Each spring we develop a list of the new resources we want to put into place by fall. The summer is a time when some writing program team members (mostly the Director, but with assistance from the team) work to create new resources.

Redesigns to www.isuwriting.com: Placing resources onto our website, removing old information and updating pages is ongoing work.

Research Presentations: Joyce Walker, Moria Torrington, and Nancy McKinney presented at the National Conference for Writing program Adminstrators in July, 2013. The title of our presentation was, “Abnormal in Normal: Activity-Based Assessment and the Issue of Uptake.”

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Section III: Fall Semester 2013 Activities

Program Staff for Fall 2013Members of the Writing Program Leadership Team Committee:

Joyce Walker, Director Nancy McKinney, Assistant Director Meagan Gaddis, Office Manager Elizabeth Williams, ENG 101 Coordinator Moria Torrington, ENG 101.10 Coordinator Chereka Dickerson, ENG 145 Coordinator Ryan Edel, Technology Coordinator Chamere Poole, Professional Development Coordinator Meghann Meeusen, Grassroots Writing Research Journal, Associate Editor Summer Qabazard, Community Outreach and Writing Research

Development Emily Johnston, K-12 Outreach, Student Research Resources, Writing

Research Scholarship program, and Writing Program Speaker Series

Note: Meghann Meeusen and Chamere Poole were the two new Writing Program members for Fall 2013).

Note #2: For semester reports for all graduate WPLT members, see Appendix E.

ConsultantsIn Fall 2013 the Writing Program used consultants the Grassroots Writing Research Journal:

Sarah Hercula (our former Associate Editor), who stayed on with the journal to complete some important layout and visual design work.

Josette Loring and Kelsey Forkner (for assistant editor work). Note: In addition, member of the ENG 402 class acted as unpaid interns for

the journal: Julie Bates, Jessica Young, & Laura Skokan

Researcher/Reviewers for the Fall 2013 program-wide assessment of ENG 145In Fall 2013 we also hired ten writing program instructors to do a preliminary review the

data collected in our 145 assessment. These instructors completed approximately 20 hours (each) of review of the assessments we collected, and were each paid 250.00 for their work. Reviewers included: Jeremy Hurley Angela Sheets

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Deb RIggert-Keiffer Jeff Reints Arwa Maliabari Michell Wright-Doctore Jessica Young Jeff Higgins Barbi Smyser-Fauble

Activities for Fall 2013In fall 2013 we worked to develop new assessment plans for both ENG 101 and ENG 145, and to plan for a longitudinal assessment that will follow up to 20 ISU students as the move through their courses at the university. We also worked on our plan to create a “Writing Researcher’s Commonplace Book” as a new text for ENG 101. In addition, we we worked to implement our restructuring of ENG 101.10, and we began to plan for a general restructuring of how we store and organize our data and program information. We also completed research on making podcasts and began our new ISU Writing Program Podcast series. In terms of new activity, we also engaged in various kinds of outreach activities and developed several new research and data collection projects.

New Instructor OrientationIn Fall 2013 we continued a plan for orientation that was similar to the one we developed for Fall 2012, with the addition of certain resources (especially new resources for ENG 101.10 coordinators). The results of the orientation survey taken by new instructors illustrates that we were successful (overall) in meeting new instructor needs. Of the 18 respondents (12 Ph.D. and 6 M.A.), 17 were positive overall. The comparison from the 2012 survey indicates that we even increased the overall positive response to the orientation, and that the new instructors felt well-supported and well-informed by the conclusion of the week’s training. The survey is qualitative, so we don’t have a numerical ranking, but response examples include the following (for the full survey of evaluations, see Appendix F):

The sessions we did in the second week where we explicitly discussed course plans/assignments were really valuable. I think I could have used a little more specific discussion of "what do I do with these students for 50 or 75 minutes" since that seems to be the most difficult part of planning my course is the day to day activities/discussions/etc that take place in class. 8/26/2013 9:45 AM

I think Elizabeth, Summer, Chereka and Meghann did excellent work. I especially like how they made use of rotating concurrent small group sessions during the library trip. 8/21/2013 10:09 AM

I've done my fair share of professional development. This was much better than anything offered by my school district. I thought the sessions were thoughtful and provided the support I needed. You also provided a schedule that allowed me time to think and work. 8/20/2013 7:44 PM

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yes, they were excellent...more real life examples 8/20/2013 4:15 PM

I think these were largely successful beyond the one issue I noted above. 8/20/2013 7:57 AM

Yes. They were really helpful. Working in small groups was a good way to share ideas. However, sometimes what one person would advise you to do is not the same as what another person would suggest, so it can be a little bit confusing some times.

Great information. Very helpful in getting me to the point where I feel more comfortable jumping into teaching this semester. I really appreciate actually having a syllabus and basic course plan ready to go now. I particularly appreciated points where you shared your own strategies, lessons, ideas, etc.—the concrete examples and guidance you provided were huge in helping me to start to see how a genre studies/CHAT approach works and to get ideas going for my own classes. I also appreciated the time spent sharing what we were thinking and getting feedback from you. 8/16/2013 1:06 PM

[NOTE: Overall we considered this to be our negative response]. I liked the sessions. I'm wondering if everything could have been a bit shorter overall. Elizabeth did most of the talking for 101 and while she is engaging and certainly a good teacher, it really seemed like she had her way of doing things and wanted everyone to do it her way. Maybe not her way exactly, but a version of her way. I understand everyone has their own pedagogy, and I respect that, but with her I didn't feel totally comfortable sharing my ideas. Summer, Meghann, and Chereka I did feel comfortable. Elizabeth and Meghann did make me feel like I was a freshman in college, as I've stated before. Both are clearly good teachers and very passionate, and I really respect that and how much they care about their students and teaching, but as a grad student, I want to be treated like the adult and scholar that I am, not an undergrad. I don't talk to my undergrads that way and they respond very well. Again, different strokes for different folks, but in general, I liked the sessions, I just wanted to be treated like more of an equal.

Since I have gushed about the orientation process, I will offer an improvement. I think the only thing that could have possibly helped me would have been a mock consulting session. Some learn through actual activity and using their bodies, and just to experience a consulting session and put an image or an idea with

a currently unknown situation might eliminate trepidation.

I thought the sessions were really helpful. It seems like a lot of planning has gone into this new structure, but I appreciated how Moria listened to our feedback and ideas about slight tweaks to the structure. It's a lot easier to take ownership of a program when your ideas are considered valid. 8/20/2013 9:56 AM

I think the sessions were very helpful, and they were able to answer all my questions. I might

have a better idea for how they could be improved after I've had a few consulting sessions.

8/20/2013 8:33

I liked that we had the opportunity with Moria, Emily, Ryan and Chamere. We were able to ask questions and have discussions that we might not have been comfortable having with the larger group.8/19/2013 12:05 AM

The sessions were intimate and helpful. We were reassured and made felt comfortable. All our questions were answered in multiple ways. 8/19/2013 2:22 AM

The 101.10 sessions were useful in helping me to prepare to be a consultant. My only issue with these sessions is that our discussions were constantly being interrupted or thrown off topic by one of the

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participants. Because of this, we were unable to discuss any of the assigned readings as we ran out of time every day. 8/17/2013 8:09 PM

Fall Writing Summit (Professional Development Event)This event in Fall 2013 followed a record of successful events that has continued since our Spring 2012 Writing Summit. We continued the format of the summit and worked to improve areas that instructors had identified. We eliminated the lunch speaker, created more time for instructors to interact with each other, and focused on bringing in program instructors (rather than WPLT team members) to lead discussions. In the past, the fall event had been scheduled over two days, and we condensed events to a single day. However, we used time on Friday to cover a whole range of different kinds of events – time to review and get help with course plans, time to meet up and work to help new instructors, and time to attend workshops on ReggieNet. We were very pleased with the event, and with instructor responses, which were overwhelmingly positive. As a result, we were able to affirm the continuation of this structure for our pre-semester professional development. We want continue to use these sessions to help strengthen the overall coherence of the program, while maintaining space for instructors to innovate and personalize their sections of the course. Evaluations of the Fall Summit are available in Appendix G. See Appendix J for a schedule of both Fall and Spring Summit events.The following response to our “overall ranking” question from the fall summit shows that we improved even over our spring summit from January, 2013, with more than 46.2 respondents ranking the event as “Excellent” and 34.6 ranking it as “very good”, with a total of 80.8 respondents ranking it in the top two categories (and again, 0% ranking it as “not useful”:

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Other Professional Development and Resource Development Activities Ongoing Professional Development Series

o Program Podcasts: Let’s Chat : In Fall 2013 we completed and produced our first program podcast, on the subject of using Cultural-Historical Activity theory practices in ENG 101 and ENG 145. The podcast (along with a summary of the Q&A following the podcast) is available through our program website: www.isuwriting.com. Chamere Poole researched, planned, and organized the event, and Ryan Edel produced the audio and text files for the website. Jeff Reints, Emily Johnston, and Meghann Meeusen participated as speakers for the event.

o Tech Times: Ryan Edel continued to offer both Face-to-Face and small group tech workshops. He focused on Reggie Net. This including a ½ day series of workshops prior to the start of the semester, to help any teachers having trouble acclimating to the use of ReggieNet for their classes. In the end, all but 3 instructors made the transition to the new site, with those three instructors agreeing to move to ReggieNet by the spring semester, 2014.

o Critical Inquiry Ambassador Program: In the fall of 2013 we worked with the Critical Inquiry Committee to develop a plan to have instructors in both ENG 101 and COM 110 visit each other’s classes, along with members from the Library staff. Our goal was to have these “Critical Inquiry Ambassadors” create ethnographies and then present on their observations at our January Critical Inquiry meeting. We plan to continue this activity in 2014.

General Assessment & Mentoring Activities: This encompasses a range of activities that include visiting instructor’s classrooms and creating classroom ethnographies, meeting one-on-one with instructors, group meetings for new instructors, reviewing course plans. Although all writing program staff participate in these activities, Elizabeth Williams (ENG101) Moria Torrington (101.10) and Chereka Dickerson (ENG 145) are the WP team members with the primary responsibility for these activities.

ENG 402 Alignment: In fall 2013 we continued our work with the ENG 402 class. Our goal in 2012 had been to re-design the class to bring it into closer alignment with our program goals – essentially designing the course for a maximum impact on the teaching practices of new instructors, while still offering a space for participants who are not writing program instructors. The course also focuses strongly on theoretical and research-oriented texts that give participants a more rigorous background necessary for teaching our genre studies/Activity theory pedagogy, while also offering activity that help participants to consider their specific teaching practices. The course (for the 2nd year) was extremely successful. Elizabeth Hatmaker taught the co-taught the course again, offering her more practical knowledge of teaching ENG 101 and ENG 145, as well as a “collegial” look at the process of learning the new theories and pedagogies (since the material is relatively new to her as well). 21 (of 21) class participants filled out the anonymous survey for the course, with the following results on the three “global” survey questions:

o Overall Usefulness of the Course: Very Useful (11) Pretty Useful (7) Useful (3) Not Always Useful (0) Not Very Useful (0) Not Useful (0)

o Assessment of Joyce’s Performance: Excellent (18) Very Good (3) Acceptable (0) Less than Acceptable (0) Poor (0)

o Assessment of Elizabeth’s Performance: Excellent (13) Very Good (8) Acceptable (0) Less than Acceptable (0) Poor (0)NOTE: These results are even more positive than the results from the fall 2012 semester. In addition, participants offered excellent constructive criticism on several activities and readings that will allow us to adjust a few aspects of the class for fall 2014 to make them even more effective.

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Community Outreach The ISU Undergraduate Writing Research Scholarship program. This program

has become more regularized and successful in 2013. For the first time in Fall 2013 we had more applicants than we had available scholarships. We selected two scholars, Vanessa Garcia and Kylie Wojciechowski, The scholars began working with Emily Johnston (PA) to create research and to present it at our (Spring 2013) Writing Research Colloquium. Our scholars will receive a stipend (500.00) and will also create an article for the Grassroots Writing Research Journal, to be published in the Spring 2015 issue (5.2) of the journal.

Visor Center Collaboration: Since 2009 we’ve been doing some basic work to connect the Writing Program and the Visor Center. This semester, we continued this relationship, but we also discussed ways to strengthen the relationships so that Visor Center tutors would be better able to work with ENG 101 students on writing projects. Although we did not make the progress we hoped to in fall 2013, work on this collaboration will continue in Spring 2014.

Writing Research Collaborative & Community Outreach: In fall 2013 we continued our work to reach out to individuals and groups in the larger community. We established new contacts with several new K-12 teaching groups and are working with several different “citizen” authors to complete Grassroots Journal articles on their writing practices (these include local non-profits, local commercial businesses, and faculty from outside of English Studies).

The National Conference for Writing Program Administration, Summer 2014: This coming July, 2014, we’ll be hosting the National Conference for Writing Program Administration here in Bloominton-Normal. Discussions and planning for the conference have been ongoing since 2010, but this fall we began to more actively plan for the conference. Nancy McKinney and Maegan Gaddis have been instrumental in these planning activities, along with Joyce Walker

CCC & CWPA Conferences: We are also planning to present research at both the CCC Conference and the CWPA conference (which we’re hosting). Our CCC conference describing a theoretically-informed use of data in ENG 101 and ENG 145. We hope to encourage multiple presentations from our program teachers at the CWPA conference (which we are hosting) this summer.

The Grassroots Writing Research JournalThe Grassroots Journal is now a fairly well-established entity. In Fall 2013 our work with the journal focused in several areas:

Documented Procedures: We continued to update our documentation for every stage of our publishing process, including a multi-tiered review system, clear instructions for reviewers, clear timetables for our 2013/2014 publishing schedule, documentation on layout and image preparation. Additionally, we created materials to help instructors with projects that ask students to write GWRJ articles. Finally, we began to track “work hours” in order to give ourselves a clear idea of the time different tasks for the journal take to complete.

Class Productions: We worked with 5 different instructors (total of 7 sections) to create research projects that ask students to produce articles for GWRJ. We visited classes to help students understand the publishing process, created instructional materials, and offered feedback on proposals and drafts.

Author/Reviewers: In Fall 2013 we began to implement a new practice – having former authors volunteer to be members of a review panel. We have 8 former authors who’ve agreed to review articles for the journal. They will participate in

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training (spring 2013) and begin completing reviews of newly submitted articles this spring (2014). We hope that this pool of reviewers will bring additional perspectives to our reviews, but it will also help us to handle the increasing workload as submissions to the journal increase. We received over 30 articles in 2013, and we are expecting that number to increase in 2014.

The Writing Researcher’s CommonPlace Book: As I mentioned in the beginning of this report, we decided not to continue with our plan to work on “special issues” of the journal. Instead, our goal is to produce a text (organized like a commonplace book) that will help instructors and students understand some of the basic concepts involved in thinking like a writing researcher. We have begun work with the Publications Unit to consider the publication of this text, which we plan to produce as an e-text (with one new addition yearly). We’d like this text to be available to other teachers, so it won’t be focused as an “ISU-specific” text, but will instead discuss concepts related to a “genre studies/Activity theory” approach to writing, with a specific focus in the following areas:

o Summaries of writing research of various kindso Techniques for investigating and analyzing genreso Techniques for understanding important concepts, such as “genre uptake,”

“learning transfer,” “genre research” and Cultural-Historical Activity Theory.o Techniques for investigating and learning about different kinds of research

Research Projects and Reports 145 Assessment Plan: In fall 2013 we completed a program-wide assessment of

ENG 145. This was a significant undertaking, with more than 250 assessments collected (students in 145 sections worked in groups) into an online database. We created a wide range of handouts, examples and instructions and worked closely with instructors to make sure everyone could complete the assessment. We also trained a group of 10 reviewer/researchers to work with the collected data. Chereka Dickerson and Joyce Walker worked on this project.

ENG 101 Assessment Plan (for Spring 2014): We also did substantial work to prepare for the ENG 101 assessment – which will begin in spring 2014. Summer Qabazard and Joyce Walker worked on this project, which included revising all the 145 materials to be appropriate for the 101 assessment, creating new writing scenarios, facilitating a Town Hall meetings for 101 instructors, answering questions, etc.

Longitudinal Assessment Plan for Researching Student Literate Practice: Our plan for a longitudinal assessment, designed to follow ENG 101 students through their courses at ISU is still in progress. We created a proposal, but did not receive funding to implement it. As a result, we plan to try again, hoping to follow students from the ENG 101 assessment this spring through their time at ISU. We will contact students in the spring, and hope to receive funding to continue the assessment in Fall 2014.

Research Project to examine uptake and transfer of concepts and skills from the Common Core State Standards: Beginning in Fall 2013, we began a discussion with faculty at Heartland Community College to design and implement a study that would track high school students as they move into our two institutions. We plan investigate how students take up and use aspects of the skills and concepts they’ve been introduced to as part of their CCSS work in High School. We have been

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working with several Heartland Community College Instructors, including, Matt Felumlee, Zach Petrea, and Sean Colcleasure. We have completed an IRB proposal for this research and we’re hoping to begin working with High School instructors as early as this spring.

Research Project with the ISU College of Business: Also in Fall 2013 we began working with the College of Business to consider the efficacy of our ENG 145.13 course. The first part of that work will entail a survey sent to the College of Business faculty, which will ask them to describe the types of writing they assign in their courses and to discuss samples of student writing from those courses. Another part of the project will be to analyze data from the 145.13 assessment to potentially identify areas where we can focus our efforts to improve student understanding of solving writing problems in business settings (See Appendix I for more information).

Illinois Articulation Initiative: The Writing Program successfully updated the approval of our ENG 101 and ENG 145 courses as part of the Illinois Articulation Initiative, which allows for transfer of course between different higher education institutions in the state of Illinois. Courses are reviewed by a state-wide committee every 8 years. We provided materials that describe our courses and the objectives and requirements for each course.

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Section IV: Upcoming Tasks for Spring 2014 ENG 101 Program Assessment (Spring 2014): A portfolio-based program-wide

assessment of student writing in ENG 101 courses will take place in Spring 2014. Our goal for Spring 2013 is to complete a full draft of the assessment plan (including all logistics for implementation) and present it to teachers by the end of the semester. Fall 2013 will then be our opportunity to do a pilot of the assessment and present it to students in order to get their feedback before Spring 2014.

ENG 145 Program Assessment Data Analysis: Now that we’ve collected a wealth of data about student knowledge, our goal is to (1) complete the report of our preliminary assessment by January, 2014, (2) provide instructors with feedback, (3) create a list of additional data assessments we want to complete.

ISU Student Longitudinal Assessment: We plan to contact students following the ENG 101 assessment, and line up a group of 25 students that we can follow through the next several years. We also plan to request funding for our research from various sources.

COB Writing Studies Research: We plan to use the data we collect from our survey of COB faculty to serve as the foundation for a re-assessment of our ENG 145.13 curriculum, which will take place in 2013, in coordination with ENG 145 instructors.

Writing Program Podcast Series: We plan to complete 4 new podcasts in spring 2013 on the following topics: (1) Developing and using “uptake genres” for proof-of-learning grading, (2) promoting student-led learning, (3) teaching research methods, and using and producing data about writing in ENG 101 and ENG 145.

Grassroots issues (5.1 and 5.2): We have this process fairly structured at this point. We’ll be following our established practices for the publication of issues 4.1 and 4.2.

Writing Researcher’s Commonplace Book: Described above (Fall 2013) we plan to move forward with this project in spring 2013. Our goals for the semester include creating an editorial board for the text, developing an explicit table of contents for the first edition and creating a timeline for production. If possible, we would like to have authors working on various sections of the text during summer, 2014.

Research Resources (in Collaboration with the Milner Library): Our interest in creating a more coherent location to develop and share resources for undergraduate students stems from requests by both students and Writing Program instructors to increase the focus on “researching” in our ENG 101 and ENG 145 courses. While instructors (and particularly students) will sometimes express this need as “writing more research papers,” our interpretation is that students actually need to better understand how research activities work, and how research is used in a range of different genres within academic and workplace settings. This work is connected to our Undergraduate Writing Research Scholarship program, but while the UWRS program focuses on students as “writing researchers,” we also recognize a need to help students better understand and use research for many types of different writing situations, inside and outside of academia. As a result, we’ve developed some initial plans for a “research & writing wiki,” which we hope to make live for students in Fall 2014. This site will be directed towards students, but it will be useful in various ways to instructors as well. Our goal in this work is to create a strong focus on “researched writing” while still allowing students and instructors to explore a wide range of different genres where research is used. Some of the initial resources the site will contain include the following:

Ask The Librarian: Which will be an interview segment where various librarians talk about tips for researching effectively, or discuss resources the library has for doing various kinds of research.

Researching “How-Tos” which will be a segment that reviews web-based resources for both doing research and for learning about how to do research.

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“Writing it Up,” which will be a segment that describes various venues for publishing research writing of different kinds. Our goal for these venues is that they be at a level where undergraduates might actually consider publishing, but that they also require or encourage various kinds of research methods and a range of rigorous citation practices.

Research Narratives, which will be narrative-based explanations of how undergraduates learn how to do particular kinds of research.

Writing Research in Action, which will be a segment that follows the work of our Undergraduate Writing Research Scholars

The Writing Program Speaker Series, which will include information about and videos of our speaker series on writing research.

Information Literacy Research, which is the data that we’re collecting on students’ information literacy practices (described elsewhere in this report). Data from this research will be made available through this site.

Community Outreach “Writing Around ISU”: This project will be beginning in spring 2014. It involves inviting members of the ISU community outside of our university (particularly small business owners and other individuals who have particular kinds of unique writing experiences) to visit ISU classes for video-taped discussion sessions where the special guest discusses the kind of writing that he/she does. These videos will then be made available to our instructors for use in their classrooms.

Community Writing for the Grassroots Journal: This ongoing effort to encourage authors – especially outside of the writing program -- to produce articles for the GWRJ will continue throughout Spring 2014.

Writing Program Speaker Series: Jody Shipka has accepted our invitation to be the Fall 2014 speaker. We’ll organize that event during spring 2014.

Grassroots Writing Research Colloquium: This event is scheduled for March 4th at 7 PM. Emily Johnston will be planning the event.

ENG 101.10 Revisions and Improvements: We restructured ENG 101.10 during the fall 2013 semester. During spring 2013, we’ll revisit these changes, make additional changes as necessary and develop a complete packet of information for both 101.10 instructors and 101.10 consultants. Laurenn Jarema (101.10 Coordinator) will be working on the revision plan, which will include the following elements: (1) materials to provide for student during the Preview sessions in Summer 2014; (2) new materials for 101.10 instructors including a “bridge” assignment that will be used in all sections of the course in Fall 2014; and (3) new training materials for orientation 2014.

Orientation Planning for Fall 2013: We feel that we’re in good shape with our plans for Fall 2014 New Instructor Orientation. However, we’d like to focus on the resources we have available for new instructors (working to organize resources and make them accessible). This includes an overhaul of our web resources. Elizabeth Williams will be overseeing this project.

www.isuwriting.com Resources: We feel that we now have a workable plan in place for storing all the different kinds of data we produce in the ISU writing program. However, this plan will require a revision and retooling of our various web resources and spaces, including the ISUwriting.com site, the ISU Writing archive site, the ReggieNet instructor site, and our program Dropbox folder. Ryan Edel will be working this semester to complete these changes to the site.

WPA Conference: In spring of 2014 we will be finalizing a range of plans for the summer conference.

Section V: Overall Program Goals for 2014

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Goals for 2014 Program DevelopmentThe following list includes the primary program goals we’ve set for 2014.

Complete the ENG 101 program-wide assessment and develop different plans to mine this data for useful materials.

Continue our Program Coalescence (which assesses our teaching from the faculty perspective and documents the types of activities that our courses include). For the first time this year, we’d like to create a plan that clearly documents the areas we’d like to consider – both areas where we document what the coherence of our program, and areas where we continue to explore what coherence we might want to work towards.

Design and make public our new “Research Resources” materials, which should include a project to make “writing research” data available to ENG 101 and ENG 145 students (we’ll be presenting on this topic at the 2014 CCC Conference in March 2014).

Complete the first edition of our Writing Researcher’s Commonplace Book Finalize plans for our Fall 2014 Speaker Series (guest Jody Shipka) Make progress on our Collaboration with the Visor Center relating to mentoring 101

students Complete addition to our instructor resources, including:

Formative assessment Summative Assessment Global Communications and Writing Research Lesson Planning Teaching Students to do writing Research

Begin to create and publish articles and articulate the various innovations of our Writing Program.

Begin implementation of our Longitudinal Assessment Plan (Spring 2013) Make progress on the various research projects we’ve begun with the College of

Business and with Heartland Community College. Organize the data that we’ve collected into a “5 years of Writing Research at ISU”

report that we can place on our website.

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