At the request of Dean Adam Leibovich, the Writing Institute is undertaking an assessment of the writing-intensive (W) course requirement across Dietrich School departments. The goal is to work through all departments over the next several years, assessing a cohort of departments each year.
Our goal is to develop a clear and honest picture of how W courses are functioning across the school, recognizing what departments are doing well and identifying opportunities where the Writing Institute can offer further support. This assessment work can also count as the annual assessment of undergraduate programs required of your department.
What the Assessment Involves
The Writing Institute will work with your department to develop a plan for the assessment that meets your needs. Here is what participation typically looks like:
Collecting student work and course materials. The Writing Institute will identify student projects to collect. Depending on the number of W courses in your department, we may ask you to collect a few student projects from each course we are looking at, or more if you have only one or two W courses, so that we are seeing a range of work. We will talk through these plans with you. For each course included in the assessment, we will also need the assignment prompt students were responding to and the course syllabus.
Assembling a reading team. Departments whose W courses are being assessed will need to identify three to five faculty readers from within their department to participate in a reading and assessment session. Writing Institute administrators and at least one reader from another Dietrich School department* will also take part. The timing of the reading will depend on the scope of the assessment. In most cases it will take place in the spring term, though if we are focusing on samples from spring classes, reading will extend into the summer or early fall.
Participating in a department conversation. Writing Institute administrators will meet with department stakeholders to learn about how writing-intensive teaching is structured and supported within your department. That conversation informs the assessment report and ensures that findings are interpreted in the context of your department's specific situation.
What We Assess
Our assessment draws on multiple sources of evidence. A team of readers evaluates anonymized student writing samples and the assignment handouts students were responding to. Readers use two frameworks: the AAC&U Written Communication VALUE Rubric and the Writing Institute's own guidelines for new W course proposals. Writing Institute administrators also review course syllabi to understand how W course expectations are communicated to students.
Before the reading begins, all readers participate in a norming conversation to calibrate their use of the rubric. Readers score a small set of sample papers independently, then meet to compare scores and discuss their reasoning. The goal is not to reach identical scores but to develop a shared understanding of what the criteria mean in practice.
After norming, readers score a larger set of papers independently. The group then meets to discuss their scores, take a close look at a few specific papers, and reflect on what they observed across the full sample. That conversation shapes the findings that go into the department report.
The Report
Findings are compiled into a written report for each department. The report goes to the department and to the dean's office. Our aim is for the report to be a useful document that recognizes the work your department has been doing on its W courses and identifies concrete opportunities for further development.
Departments that would like additional support following the assessment are welcome to invite the Writing Institute to visit W course classes — an opportunity for collaborative observation and reflection rather than evaluation.
If you have questions about this process or would like to move your department's assessment up in the queue, please contact Jean Grace at jgrace@pitt.edu.
* Outside readers play a vital role in our assessment process, offering disciplinary perspectives from across the Dietrich School. We thank the following faculty for their generosity, their thoughtfulness, and their commitment to undergraduate writing at Pitt:
Kristen Butela, Biological Sciences
David Fraser, Neuroscience
Hannah Morris, Chemistry
Danielle Spitzer, Biological Sciences
Liz Richey, Psychology
Abagael West, Biological Sciences