“Preliminary studies show that, over the last year and a half, university students’ writing has improved by 60 percent,” Dr. Ellen Barker, director of composition and associate professor of English, said.
The students owe much of their success to the First Year Writing Program, which was implemented a year and a half ago because of poor performances on the now-defunct University Writing Assessment.
“There was an awareness by the department of language and literature and by the president of the university, Dean Momayezi, and Dan Jones, the provost, that there needed to be a more comprehensive writing program at the university because student pass rates – with what was then – the UWA were not very high,” Barker said.
When university administrators decided the program had to be put in place they hired Barker, who became the university’s first director of composition.
As director of composition, Barker supervises all writing instructors and professors of English 1301 and 1302; she also takes part in directing models for each writing course, she said.
“I did an empirical study of the students’ writing abilities and I selected textbooks that aligned with the students’ needs. I’ve written a faculty handbook and that sort of trains the faculty to teach the courses,” Barker added.
In addition to developing a faculty handbook, Barker and her writing program colleagues have also customized textbooks to include more of an ESL (English as a Second Language) component and have effected computer software into the classes.
Barker is also working to create a student handbook. The handbook will offer an explanation of the program, plagiarism, and documentation as well as provide sample essays.
The writing program has introduced rhetoric and composition minor and master’s degrees.
Recently, it created a writing certificate that can be added to a degree plan in any discipline, Barker said. Students need only 12 credit hours to complete the certification.
One issue Barker said the program faces is dealing with a short staff.
“We need to hire full-time instructors. If we hired more full-time instructors who were dedicated to the writing program, I really think it could take off,” she said.
But despite dealing with a short staff, faculty has responded very positively to the program and its effect on their communication with students.
“I feel like the faculty is happier because they feel like we’re making connections and changes in students’ writing abilities,” Barker said.
Dr. Annette Olsen-Fazi, associate professor, offered testimony to this.
“I’m absolutely convinced that if our freshmen report such high satisfaction with the faculty-student interaction it’s because of the first year writing program because we get very involved individually with our students,” she said.
Bernice Sanchez-Perez, English instructor, said she likes the program’s focus on the inquiry method.
“(It) is a very good method for working with primarily our ESL population. So they learn through exploration. It’s not like we give them topics. They explore different topics they explore the writing process, and we allow them to do a lot of free-writing which helps the students expand on what their interests are,” she said.
“I think the one thing I notice the most is that students we get from 1301 into our 1302 classes seem to be better prepared; they have a better foundation,” Barker said.