Yeah, WRITE! New Disciplinary Writing Curriculum As Outcome of Assessment Cycles

Abstract

Pacific Island Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has 6 teaching faculty and 20 majors enrolled each semester, including 85% underserved students. Writing and critical thinking skills are very important to us. In May 2014 faculty collected student course assignments and evaluated them collaboratively using a rough rubric. The results showed that 50% students were not meeting our expectations. Subsequently, we revised SLO4 and explored external learning opportunities (e.g., Eng 100, Writing Center, our own writing intensive courses) and discovered that they are not sufficient in helping students to achieve our expectations. As a result, we developed the Yeah, WRITE! program to enhance disciplinary writing across the curriculum. The program consists of a series of in-class workshops built around reading and note-taking skills, citation, information literacy, and stages of the writing processes for various genres. Further, we used students work to develop and refine an evaluation rubric and aligned the Yeah, WRITE curriculum with the rubric. We also implemented writing intensive designations in all major core courses. Preliminary data showed that the program is successful: students were happy to learn diverse approaches to the writing process; grateful for handouts and models useful for other classes; relieved to have tools to address writer’s block. We plan to systematically assess SLO 4 every two years to monitor the effect of the new program. The poster shares the program curriculum, strategies to engage faculty, and invite collaboration with campus committees in refining and utilizing the Yeah, WRITE! program.