“Distributed Teaching, Distributed Learning: Integrating Technology and Criteria-driven Assessment into the Delivery of First Year Composition” by Rebecca Rickly discusses yet another approach to delivering and assessing freshman composition. Rickly begins by describing five challenges Texas Tech University was facing in the first year composition (FYC) course:
- increased enrollment with no additional teachers or funding
- students’ inability to understand some non-native instructors
- lack of appropriate feedback to students
- weak instruction in some classes
- instructor difficulties with department-mandated web applications
By changing up some of the common practices, the department was able to successfully address these issues.
To deal with the increased enrollment, the department increased class sizes, decreased the number of instructors, increased writing assignments, and decreased time in the classroom. Using this approach, only the most skilled and experienced instructors are sent to the classrooms to teach. The rest of the instructors are designated as “document instructors.” These instructors evaluate the students’ writing and give students feedback. Each paper is evaluated by two document instructors. The first assigns a grade and gives feedback. The second evaluator can see the feedback but not the grade and assigns his/her own grade to the essay. If there is more than eight points separating the grades, the essay goes to a third evaluator.
The last chapter is by the editor and sums up how the questions she posed in the first chapter are answered throughout the book.
charityjoy 