The last two years, I used this space to describe the plan we piloted in the fall semester of 2005 to assess our BA program in English. We implemented the program in the spring semester of 2006 by asking our graduating seniors to submit a portfolio of their work in English at MSU. We also asked seniors to attend an exit interview with faculty members of our assessment committee, and then to fill out an exit survey on the major.

Last year, I reported here the strengths of our BA program, strengths documented now by two years of assessment data. We have found, for instance, that our graduates love our faculty, considering them not only expert in their respective fields and dynamic in the classroom but also helpful and caring, fully invested in students’ growth as readers, writers, and emerging professionals. We have found, too, that our majors leave our program well versed in British literature, American literature, and, for those who choose a special emphasis, in creative writing or linguistics.

But we have gathered this assessment data not just to document programmatic strengths but also to identify ways to build on those strengths and to address areas of relative weakness. In other words, using the lingo of assessment, we have been trying to “close the loop,” to use assessment data to improve what we teach and how we teach.

For instance, last year’s data showed that 64% of the exit portfolios manifested editing skills ranging from “good” to “superior.” But what can we do for our graduates whose editing skills rate “fair” or below? Similarly, 50% of the portfolios last year showed “good” to “superior” skills in documenting research correctly, but what can we do to raise that percentage in the future?

To address such questions, we have renewed our commitment to teach reflective writing, precisely the kind of self-assessing writing featured in the exit portfolio. For two years now, we have been teaching this kind of writing in Advanced Composition, a course required of all majors. In this same course, we will begin to focus more deliberately on editing strategies and on electronic research methods.

Additionally, our graduating seniors have told us in exit interviews that they would appreciate learning more about career options in the broad field of English studies. To close this loop, Dr. Kelly Marsh has been working on a proposal for a required one-hour course, an introduction to the English major and the profession, a proposal that will come up for a vote this spring.

Our students have also asked for a wider array of writing courses as well as literature courses focused on single authors. Dr. Shalyn Claggett has responded to the latter request: her course, English 3533, Selected Authors, has been approved, and she will soon teach this course focused on Charles Dickens. In the category of writing, our creative writing faculty members have begun working on a proposal for an intermediate course in fiction and poetry writing. Additionally, the university has just approved my proposal for a junior-level course called “Writing for the Workplace,” which I will teach in the fall semester of 2008.

I hope you’ll agree that we have begun to close our assessment loop in some useful and interesting ways!

Rich Raymond,
Department Head