Closing the Loop - Strengthening Disciplinary Writing in an English BA Program - Composition Forum 35 - Spring 2017

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay

Composition Forum issue profile explains how Brigham Young University’s English Department reviewed and revised disciplinary writing requirements for its English BA between 2006 and 2015. Triggered by accreditation demands for outcomes-based assessment, the department used assessment tools to realign the curriculum with program learning outcomes, built a three-course writing sequence, and implemented increasingly complex integration activities. Collaboration rubrics then evaluated embedded assignments to track students’ writing development impact across revisions.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Defining Program Learning Outcomes

Evaluating Curricular Alignment with Program Learning Outcomes

Current Issue From the Editors Weblog Editorial Board Editorial Policy Submissions Archives Accessibility Search Composition Forum 35, Spring 2017 Closing the Loop: Strengthening Disciplinary Writing in an English BA Program Miranda Wilcox This program profile narrates how the Department of English at Brigham Young University (BYU) reviewed and revised the disciplinary writing requirements in the English BA program between 2006 and 2015. The story begins in 2006 with the dual problems of recognizing the lack of development in student writing in the major and of responding to accreditation pressure to do outcomes-based assessment on all degree-granting programs. Over the last eight years our department has used assessment tools to make two significant adjustments to solve these problems. First, we aligned the English BA curriculum with program learning outcomes by developing a sequence of three writing courses in which majors explicitly learn the discourse conventions of literary criticism. Next, we designed sequences of writing activities in these courses for students to practice increasingly complex integration of disciplinary knowledge. Now we are using collaboratively designed rubrics to evaluate embedded assignments in these writing courses, a process that helps us assess the impact of these changes on students’ writing development. This profile demonstrates how an English department reflected about the practice of teaching writing and applied methods from outcomes-based assessment to strengthen students’ disciplinary writing skills. Defining Program Learning Outcomes In 2006, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities requested that BYU“identify and publish expected learning outcomes for each of its degree programs; demonstrate that students who complete their programs have achieved the stated outcomes; and provide evidence consistently across its programs that its assessment activities lead to improvement of teaching and learning”(Tanner 2) . These mandates generated a number of university-wide and department-specific assessment initiatives over the last seven years at BYU, a private, research university, with approximately 30,000 students, sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Provo, Utah. The university has traditionally had a strong undergraduate focus, and administrators embraced this opportunity to “make a virtue of necessity by building an even better house of learning”(Tanner 4) . The Department of English is the largest department in the College of Humanities. In 2006-2007, the English department offered its 1,200 undergraduate majors two bachelors programs: English and English Teaching.{1} The English Teaching program has been closely integrated with the English BA curriculum and will not be discussed separately. Seventy-five percent of the English BA students are female. Approximately thirty-three percent of these students seek full-time employment in the discipline, twenty-five percent seek work outside the discipline, fifteen percent immediately attend graduate school, and the same percentage work at home. Providing writing instruction to such a large number of students with such a range of post-graduate goals has been an ongoing challenge for the English department. The English department employs almost sixty full-time faculty, more than sixty part-time faculty, and between fifty and sixty graduate student instructors. The faculty specialize in a variety of areas, including, British literature, American literature, Rhetoric and Composition, Creative Writing, Folklore, and English Education. The centrifugal pull toward specialization sometimes challenges a sense of common identity, pedagogical goals, and larger disciplinary aims, particularly with respect to assumptions about and expectations for student writing. In the spring of 2007, the department executive committee, comprised of the chair and three associate chairs, appointed two faculty membe

FAQs

What problem prompted BYU’s English Department to revise disciplinary writing requirements?

The department addressed shortcomings in student writing development in the major and responded to accreditation pressure to conduct outcomes-based assessment across degree programs.

How did BYU align the English BA curriculum with program learning outcomes?

It developed a sequence of three writing courses where majors explicitly learn discourse conventions of literary criticism and practice integrating disciplinary knowledge in increasingly complex ways.

How did the department evaluate the effect of these changes on student writing?

It used collaboratively designed rubrics to evaluate embedded assignments in the writing courses, assessing impacts on students’ writing development.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay