Students majoring in English will be able to employ a variety of writing styles so that they may succeed in professional situations and/or as teachers.
Objective
Writing About Literature
Students will demonstrate the ability to interpret texts by communicating their understanding of those texts in analytical essays.
Indicator
Writing Assessment
Reading and writing are part and parcel of each other. Essays written to analyze and/or apply literary texts suggest the depth and quality of the students' reading, as well as their understanding of the assignment. Thus, we will collect writing samples of English majors from various 400-level (senior-level) classes and examine them to ascertain the effectiveness of reading that they evince. Our goal is to read 25 percent of the essays, chosen at random, written by English majors in 400-level literature courses. We anticipate an enrollment of some 105 students in any given long semester and so should expect to read 26 to 30 essays.
Criterion
Assessment Of Writing Skills
The chosen essays will be assessed by a primary trait scoring done by Department of English faculty. The traits to be assessed will include plot summary v. analysis and effective use of secondary sources. 75% of the essays will be certified as acceptable or excellent.
Finding
Primary Trait Scoring Assessment
The assessment was completed, with 80 percent of the essays read (12 of 15) certified as being acceptable to excellent. See attached file for the scoring rubric.
Action
Writing Skills Assessment
While we met our goal of a 75 percent pass rate on the assessment of the essays, we are not satisfied with the drop in our pass rate from 89 percent in the previous year to 80 percent in the current year. Nor were we satisfied with the number of essays submitted. We had asked some 27 essays be submitted, but only 15 were provided. We attribute this to timing. Faculty were asked at the beginning of the last week of instruction to submit clean (that is, unmarked) copies of student essays from students marked on a given class role sheet. Given the timing, some faculty, overwhelmed with end-of-semester grading, either could not or simply did not comply. In the future, we will remind faculty of the need to receive essays from them at the start of the semester, with the request for final submissions being made when there are still three to four weeks of instruction remaining.
Further, we will ask faculty to participate in a departmental teaching seminar devoted to such topics as preparing writing assignments, conducting peer review sessions, and providing formative assessments of writing.
Goal
Secondary English Education Certification
English majors and minors seeking certification as Secondary English teachers will receive a grounding in literature, in writing, and in the pedagogy of Secondary English.
Objective
Secondary English Certification Validation
Students seeking teacher certification will be able to pass the English content area portion of the TExES exam (a certification test administered by the Texas Education Agency).
Indicator
English Content Area TExES Preparation
Secondary English Education students will be prepared to pass the TExES English content area exam in their final semester or shortly after graduating. The State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) developed standards for Texas educators that delineate what the beginning educator should know and be able to do. These standards, which are based on the state-required curriculum for students, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), form the basis for the Texas Examinations of Educator Standards (TExES).
As required by the Texas Education Code 21.048, successful performance on educator certification examinations is required for the issuance of a Texas educator certificate. The TExES test is a criterion-referenced examination designed to measure the knowledge and skills required in English language and literature teaching.
A score of 240 is the minimum level of competency required over all of the domains. A student may fail a domain but pass the test. The following are the areas tested: Domain I: Integrated Language Arts, Diverse Learners, and the Study of English Domain II: Literature, Reading Processes, and Skills for Reading Literary and Nonliterary Texts Domain III: Written Communication Domain IV: Oral Communication and Media Literacy
Criterion
TExES Scores
At least 75 percent of students taking the TExES English content area exam will pass. (Note: scoring of the TExES results in a "pass" or "not passed" designation.) In order to ensure that our students are as prepared as possible, we require them to participate in a working on preparing to take the TExES before clearing them to register. This workshop is offered by Dr. Gene Young, and we believe that his efforts have contributed significantly to our pass rate. (See attached handouts, prepared by Dr. Young, which he presents during the workshop.)
Finding
TExES Scores
83.3 percent of students seeking certification in Secondary English Education passed the TExEX English, Language Arts, and Reading 8-12 exam (N = 30, with 25 students passing the exam). For the five students who did not pass the test, an analysis of their scores shows that Domain II was listed as a substandard score (i.e., below 240) on all five exams. Domains III and IV were problematic for three of the students, while Domain I was problematic for only one.
Action
TExES Assessment
We met our goal of a 75 percent pass rate. This year's results show a slight increase over the previous year (up from 82.6 percent to 83.3 percent) but still not as high (96 percent) as that of two years ago. We will continue to examine our preparation of students for this exam and seek to strengthen those efforts.
Goal
Literature And Literary Theory
Students majoring in English will acquire an appreciation of various critical approaches and methodologies in studying literature and literary theory.
Objective
Reading Literature Critically
Each upper-division literature class incorporates discussion of critical approaches and methodologies, and students will be able to use various of the approaches and methodologies presented in analyzing literary texts.
Indicator
Writing Assessment
Reading and writing are part and parcel of each other. Essays written to analyze and/or apply literary texts suggest the depth and quality of the students' reading, as well as their understanding of the assignment. Thus, we will collect writing samples of English majors from various 400-level (senior-level) classes and examine them to ascertain the effectiveness of reading that they evince. Our goal is to read 25 percent of the essays, chosen at random, written by English majors in 400-level literature courses. We anticipate an enrollment of some 105 students in any given long semester and so should expect to read 26 to 30 essays.
Criterion
Assessment Of Writing Skills
The chosen essays will be assessed by a primary trait scoring done by Department of English faculty. The traits to be assessed will include plot summary v. analysis and effective use of secondary sources. 75% of the essays will be certified as acceptable or excellent.
Finding
Primary Trait Scoring Assessment
The assessment was completed, with 80 percent of the essays read (12 of 15) certified as being acceptable to excellent. See attached file for the scoring rubric.
Action
Reading Critically
While we met our goal of a 75 percent pass rate on the assessment of the essays, we are not satisfied with the drop in our pass rate from 89 percent in the previous year to 80 percent in the current year. Nor were we satisfied with the number of essays submitted. We had asked some 27 essays be submitted, but only 15 were provided. We attribute this to timing. Faculty were asked at the beginning of the last week of instruction to submit clean (that is, unmarked) copies of student essays from students marked on a given class' role sheet. Given the timing, some faculty, overwhelmed with end-of-semester grading, either could not or simply did not comply. In the future, we will remind faculty of the need to receive essays from them at the start of the semester, with the request for final submissions being made when there are still three to four weeks of instruction remaining.
Further, we will ask faculty to participate in a departmental teaching seminar devoted to such topics as preparing writing assignments, conducting peer review sessions, and providing formative assessments of writing.
Goal
Prepared For Graduate Studies
Students will be prepared to enter graduate studies.
Objective
Graduate Study
Students will be prepared to enter graduate studies after completing the BA in English.
Indicator
Preparation For Graduate Study In English
English majors who wish to pursue graduate study in English will be prepared to do so.
Criterion
Admission to Graduate Study
At least one English student earning the B.A. at SHSU will be admitted to graduate study annually.
Finding
Admission to Graduate Study
Seven of our undergraduate majors have been admitted to graduate study in the SHSU English M.A. program to date, and another six are awaiting admission, pending graduation in August, 2009. In addition, two other of our undergraduate majors have been admitted for graduate study in other universities.
Action
Graduate Study In English
Because we exceeded our goal and saw students admitted not only to our M.A. program but also to master's level programs at two other universities, we will continue current efforts at preparing our undergraduate majors for graduate study. We will expand these efforts through a more formal mentoring program than we now have (most mentoring is done informally and at the student's instigation), and we will structure a workshop with a title along the lines of "So You Think You Want to Go to Graduate School." In this workshop, we will encourage junior and senior English majors and minors to consider graduate study and offer helpful tips on such topics as the application process, taking the GRE, and securing letters of recommendation. We will also encourage our students to participate in the university-sponsored workshop series on preparing to take the GRE and GMAT.