Handbook

OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT

The Colorado Commission on Higher Education has mandated that all state universities must provide evidence that their students have met the educational goals that are set for them. At Colorado State each department has the responsibility for gathering evidence that its majors have achieved the educational goals set for them by the department. The English Department has provided for a number of means of doing this, and two of these methods require your cooperation.

1. Senior Portfolio. Each graduating English major, beginning with those students who were first semester juniors in the Fall 1990, will be required to submit to the department a portfolio containing at least three papers representing the student's best written work in a variety of classes and circumstances. The papers should be copies of those that have been turned in to a CSU English professor for a grade in upper-level courses. Paper must be the originals or photocopies of the originals and should include the student's name, the class and professor to whom the paper was submitted, and that professor's original grade and comments. The student should also label each paper indicating which type of paper it is intended to represent (see below for an explanation of paper types). These portfolios cannot be returned to the student. The portfolio must be submitted to the English Department office at the time the student turns in his/her Application for Graduation Form, and no such form will be advanced through channels until the portfolio is submitted.

In order to be able to assess the various goals formulated for the English major, we ask that students submit different kinds of papers. Each student must turn in at least three papers, one from each of three of the following five categories:

1. A paper in which the student writes nonfiction prose with a particular disciplinary focus for a general audience (as is written in CO 301 and 401).

2. A paper in which the student demonstrates skill at close reading, or explication, of a specific literary work.

3. A paper in which the student examines a literary work or works from a distinct critical perspective, such as the political, psychological, biographical, archetypal, feminist, deconstructionist, etc. perspective, or one in which the student examines a main period, movement, or figure from British or American literary history or from another literary culture.

4. A paper in which the student treats linguistic concerns, such as the principles of language structure, the ways in which language changes, the differences between speech and writing, or the process of language acquisition.

5. A paper representing the student's area of concentration (a set of poems or a short story from Creative Writing concentrators, a paper on pedagogical matters from Certification students, a paper on advanced linguistics from Language concentrators) or in the case of regular English majors a paper from the student's favorite area of study.

These portfolios will be evaluated with the purpose of collecting statistical information only as to the accomplishments of our majors overall and not with the purpose of evaluating specific students.

2. A Survey of Graduating Seniors. As part of the English Department's Outcomes Assessment Program, you are required to fill out a short survey on computer. To complete it go to room 300 Eddy and ask a monitor to direct you to the Outcomes Assessment Survey. After you have finished the survey have the lab monitor sign and date the blue form to verify completion.