Members present: Dr. Abebe, Dr. Addison, Dr. Bock, Mr. Brinkmeyer, Dr. Cosbey, Dr. T. Mason,

Dr. Methven, Dr. Obia, Dr. Owen, Ms. Rutter, Dr. Shonk, Dr. Wohlstein.

Member absent: Ms. McDermott.

Staff present: Ms. Herrington-Perry, Mrs. Chancellor, Academic Affairs.

Guests Present: D. Wolski, R. Murray, D. Ringuette, G. Aylesworth, A. Shelton, N. Isacson,

D. Hopgood, T. Zuber, Dean Wall, M. Wohlrabe, B. Irwin, M. Kelm,

W. Weber, A. Baharlou, B. Kuykendall, F. Hohengarten, Dean Johnson,

D. Boyd, M. May, and N. Meinheit.

I. Minutes.

The Minutes of January 27, 2000, were approved with the following correction:

Members present: add Ms. Rutter.

2. Correspondence.

1. Academic Waiver Report from the College of Education and Professional Studies for January 2000.
2. Executive Action (1-28-00) from the College of Sciences.
3. Executive Action (12-16-99) from the College of Arts and Humanities.

The Council decided to change the order of the Agenda to accommodate the guests.

III. EIU Electronic Writing Portfolio, 00-03.

3. Dr. Murray, Writing Across the Curriculum, presented the proposal and answered questions of the Council. The motion passed with a vote as follows:

Yes: Dr. Addison, Dr. Bock, Mr. Brinkmeyer, Dr. Cosbey, Dr. T. Mason,

No: Dr. Methven, Dr. Obia, and Dr. Shonk.

This action approves the following to become effective Fall 2000 for new freshmen.

According to EIU’s goals for student learning, writing is an activity that should occur in a rich interactive environment and should reflect the writer’s careful thought and planning with particular attention to occasion, motivation, and audience. Because this vision of writing is what we teach in all classrooms across the curriculum when we ask students to do their best in response to writing activities, students should be encouraged to see their written products directly tied to their writing processes. This vision of writing at the university is tied to an interactive experience within an academic community, as well, so the current system for evaluating student writing competency via the Writing Competency Exam is an inadequate measure of writing performance. We, therefore, submit the following Electronic Writing Portfolio Plan as a more authentic and effective system for measuring the writing competency of the student body.

A portfolio including a sampling of a student’s writing over the course of that student’s university experience would be a more valid and comprehensive method for evaluating writing in context than our current system. Also, preparing a portfolio would give faculty and students an opportunity to regularly discuss and enhance writing opportunities and would encourage students and faculty to develop more fully and analyze more extensively the writing that students produce. Portfolios, according to Pat Belanoff, Peter Elbow, and William Condon, comprise a creative response to the need for accountability. They also serve as a resolution to the mismatch between, on the one hand, the authentic work writers do in class, and on the other, the artificial work created by the Writing Competency Exam.

A fundamental principle of writing across the curriculum, and a primary goal of Eastern Illinois University’s general education program, is that writing should be a priority in our classrooms and that students should engage in writing that connects to their learning environment. According to the university’s general education mission statement, "as a foundation for further exploration within the general education curriculum, for study in one’s major area, and for developing a successful career, our general education program requires both course work in and assessment of written and oral communication skills." The WCE does not encourage either of these activities. Since the WCE is tied to no academic event in students’ curricular experience, the WCE encourages students to see writing as an activity separate from their learning. The work submitted for the electronic writing portfolio will be a direct result of students’ course work.

Although this portfolio method for ensuring writing competency does not include a timed test, adopting this portfolio system will provide student writers with more frequent writing opportunities, which their instructors can more closely assess and review during those students’ academic careers. Composition theorists from various schools of thought emphasize writing as a "social" act, an activity that derives its value and its strength from discussion, collaboration, and revision. Writing that derives from careful thought, planning, and intervention is writing that most fully approximates the writing done by successful, professional writers. The writing portfolio will be an outward measure of the university’s commitment to excellence in student performance and learning.

This idea for a writing portfolio dates to 1996 when a joint committee of WAC and WCE proposed it as a strategy for improving the WCE at EIU. According to Linda Coleman, a previous WAC director, the idea was discussed when the current core was instituted. Parallel to the core, the original idea of a portfolio was suggested as a method of creating a more authentic writing assessment measurement than the Writing Competency Exam. The current Electronic Writing Portfolio would be implemented in fall of 2000 and would impact only incoming freshmen. Transfer students beginning their academic careers in fall of 2000 at other campuses will begin the portfolio process when they arrive at EIU.

Our proposed system would ask each student to create an electronic portfolio of four sample pieces of writing. One piece would come from each academic level, according to the number of hours the student has completed: 0-29 hours, 30-59 hours, 60-89 hours, and 90-graduation. The rationale for including a piece of writing from each academic level is that doing so provides a way of assessing students’ growth as writers. Writing at the various levels draws on cognitive skills ranging from those required for writing narratives to those required for synthesizing information in writing. Upper division courses will draw on higher order thinking skills that are less important for writing in earlier courses. Sequential writing would also allow students to profile their development as writers and their own cognitive growth.

• The first essay/document would come from one of the English Core (writing centered) courses (before student has earned 30 hours).
• The second essay/document would come from a General Education class at the 2000 level (writing intensive) or from an introductory (writing intensive) course in the major field (between 30 and 59 hours earned).
• The third essay/document would come from an upper division General Education course (writing intensive). Or if the student’s major offers only one upper division writing intensive course, the essay/document should come from a 3000 or 4000 level course in the major (writing intensive) (between 60 and 89 hours earned).
• The fourth essay/document would come from the Senior Seminar (writing intensive) (from 90 hours to graduation).

Each student will be responsible for collecting and submitting each writing sample prior to registering for the upcoming semester before they move up to the next level (30 hrs/60 hrs/89 hrs/90+hrs). The student will sign a statement that the work is the student’s own work (subject to action by EIU’s Judicial Affairs Office if this is false) and will be required to complete the portfolio as a graduation requirement. All students will be instructed to save documents in Rich Text format before submitting them on disk or by e-mail to a mainframe/server. Students will also be instructed to save a copy of each paper they submit.

The writing sample would be accompanied by a statement from the course instructor attesting that the student submitted the paper for a course under that teacher’s supervision and that the paper is, or is not, of competent writing quality. Each portfolio submission, then, will be accompanied by both the student and faculty statements. For security purposes, it will be necessary to have these statements come via e-mail from the instructor’s e-mail account. An additional password may also be instituted. Faculty teaching writing-intensive or writing-centered courses should announce in class and/or on their syllabi requirements for portfolio submission. Workshops addressing the portfolio submission process, as well as criteria for writing competency, will be implemented as well.

The faculty statement/form could also be designed as a webpage document to be completed and submitted by the faculty member (with passwords for security purposes):

Faculty Member’s name, Department, Phone

Student’s Name

Student’s Social Security Number

Course in which writing sample originated and semester in which the course was taken

Statement of Writing Intensive nature of the course environment (For example, "I created, drafted and revised this writing in response to a specific assignment for this particular course in which writing was a consideration for grading").

Statement of Writing Competency ("I judge this writing sample to have achieved a passing level of writing competency for a college writer")

Statement of Student Honesty ("To the best of my knowledge, this student wrote this work and created it for the course described above")

The student integrity statement/form could also be designed as a webpage document to be completed and submitted by the student:

Student’s Name

Student’s Social Security Number

Course in which writing sample originated along with semester and instructor’s name

Statement of Writing Intensive nature of the course environment ("I created, drafted, and revised this writing in response to a specific assignment for this particular course in which writing was a consideration for grading")

Statement of Student Honesty ("I wrote this work and created it for the course described above")

Orientation presentations, blocks for students failing to submit competent essays each year, and/or faculty discussion of portfolios with students in their writing intensive/centered courses each semester will be necessary to ensure students will submit writing each year.

The Office of Academic Assessment and Testing would be responsible for storing the electronic portfolios via a Server or Mainframe. The student would be responsible for adding to the portfolio, with the instructor’s assistance. A sample of the completed portfolios would be reviewed to assure that writing competency has been reached. If writing competency is not reached by a large proportion of the portfolios, then measures should be taken to ensure more effective writing instruction at the university. This office will oversee the completed portfolios for seven years. Students will not have access to completed portfolios but can keep backup copies of their portfolios to use in professional contexts (for job applications or for graduate studies applications, for example). Additional staff will be needed in this office to implement the portfolio.

Competent essays should be from moderately to extremely competent in each of these areas: focus, organization, development, style, and mechanics. A moderately competent essay usually has a focus developed in some significant way with support, although writing may begin to lose focus, and is not as detailed as more proficient writing. Usually there is a sense of sentence construction even though it is not too sophisticated. Sometimes paragraph problems begin to appear. Writing that either has very limited and weak development and some grammatical/mechanical errors, or that attempts some development but is full of errors would not be considered competent. Please see attached assessment plan and holistic scoring scale.

Within these parameters, there is ample room for faculty to define what their disciplines, and the academic community at large, accept as reasonably articulate and clearly written documents. Rather than represent a lowering of standards of competency, EIU’s portfolio system should allow faculty to raise expectation of performance (in comparison to standards at work with evaluation of the WCE) because student and faculty members will have the opportunity to define the standards that represent disciplinary and community norms.

A sampling of portfolios may be used to assess the Writing Across the Curriculum Program’s effectiveness.

Transfer students will submit samples from their first year at Eastern and subsequent years (For example, Senior Seminar and/or Writing Intensive upper division courses). They will enter the system as soon as they transfer, accumulating representative pieces of work from each year at EIU.

Please see attached budget

IV. Deadline and Review for New and Revised General Education Course Proposals, 00-02.

No: Dr. Addison, Dr. Bock, Mr. Brinkmeyer, Dr. Cosbey, Dr. T. Mason,

Dr. Methven, Dr. Owen, Ms. Rutter, Dr. Shonk, Dr. Wohlstein.

The meeting adjourned at 3:55 p.m. Kathy Chancellor, Recording Secretary.

1. New Course Proposal, ECN, 4689, Theory and Research. (Postponed)