More of my annotated bibliography...

Royer, Daniel J. and Roger Gilles. "Basic Writing and Directed Self-Placement." Basic Writing e-Journal 2 (2000): 31 Jan. 2005 http://www.asu.edu/clas/english/composition/cbw/summer_2000_V2N2.htm

This article looks at the problematic nature of traditional placement measures, and the benefits of directed self-placement. Royer and Gilles discuss the ways they use directed self-placement at Grand Valley State University to encourage the agency of students in their writing program. The most interesting aspect of this article is that it looks like the GVSU model of directed self-placement is almost a mirror image of what we plan to do with students at EMU. I haven't asked Linda, but I think she did mention that they consulted GVSU during the process of developing the "guided self-placement" method at EMU. I like that these authors mention that the placement program needs to be proactive for students to prepare them for being proactive, not just in writing courses, but throughout the rest of the college experience.

Kizza, Immaculate. "Placement Tests: The Writer's Reactions." Annual Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, 1993, San Diego, California.

This report describes a study conducted at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga that looked at freshmen responses to writing placement tests. After taking an hour-long impromptu essay exam, students were asked to fill out a survey about their experience taking the placement test. Though the placement test seemed to "accurately" place students in the proper composition courses (meaning 98% successfully completed the course), I think the words of the students are more important. One question asked students about the clarity of the essay prompt, and a vast majority felt that they understood the statement but was unsure about what was expected of them. "Wastefulness is a necessary part of the American way of life" was the essay prompt. Students actually mentioned that "the statement was vague: Is America wasteful in time, money, environment, all of the above?," which to me seems like a valid question. The type of writing that I expect from my students at EMU is writing that addresses a more specific topic than what was given here....so why not use a topic that is reflective of what the writing program values? Maybe UT doesn't value that, or it is just this author because it is implied that students who ask this sort of quesiton "exhibited a clear lack of critical ability." To me it seems like just the opposite. It is interesting what has changed and what still remains the same at universities, since this study was conducted in 1992.

Slowly, but surely...

Right now I am slowly, but surely working on my research for my annotated bibliography. I'm trying not to be overwhelmed by the information that I've found by taking one source at a time. Here are a few that I am using to get me started:

Saunders, Pearl I. 2000. Meeting the needs of entering students through appropriate placement in entry-level writing courses. ERIC Document Reproduction Service, ED 447 505.

Saunders examines the "accuracy of our entry-level English assessment practices in order to obtain pertinent information that may help to increase the academic success" (3) of students at the community college level. Her report examines the relationships between student placement scores (from ACCUPLACER-computer assisted testing software), grades, age, race and gender among freshman students at St. Louis Community College. While age, race, and gender had little to do with student grades in these entry-level courses, placement scores did. Students who were accurately placed in a course as a result of test scores had a higher retention rate than those who were inaccurately placed. According to the study, when a student was misplaced it was due to advisors, or faculty who misguided the student, not ACCUPLACER. What was interesting about this study was that they suggested that students take both enter and exit impromptu essay "exams" to ensure that there is continuity among instructors' teaching practices/grading. I wonder if these impromptu "exams" would cause anxiety for students that could get in the way of becoming better writers. If they are concerned about these upcoming "tests" throughout the semester, then they may avoid taking chances with their writing throughout the semester. I also wonder who would evaluate these "exit" exams and the amount of time it would take to look at them. Wouldn't there be discrepancies among evaluators as well?


Haswell, Richard H. 2004. Post-secondary Entry Writing Placement : A Brief Synopsis of Research. CompPile.

Haswell's essay gives an overview of how writing placement has worked in the past, and where it is headed for the future. Descriptions of tests, both essay and standardized, tend to be the trend. However, more and more institutions are changing their methods to directed self-placement. This essay gave me a good idea of where to start my research and where to begin finding some valuable sources. The works cited page of this essay is probably as much, or more helpful than the essay itself. I have already started to look for some of the original sources that Haswell points to in his essay to shape my own opinions about the writing placement techniques used in post-secondary schools.

New Ideas...but are they too narrow?

So, after reading Richard Haswell's breif synopsis of Post-Secondary Entry Writing Placement I now have a better idea of where I want to go next. He has quite a few sources in his bibliographic information that I am currently trying to find, since he only mentions them briefly in his paper.

The ones I am most interested in finding are:

• Matzen and Hoyt's 2004 research on holistically scored essays from the Journal of Developmental Education (unable to find on the shelf)
• Royer and Gilles 2003 Directed self-placement: principles and practices
• Blakesley's Directed self-placement from WPA
• Willard-Traub's Portfolio assessment at U of M in Assessing Writing (possibly available through ILL)

I still want to find a way to see if students "accurately" place themselves in the appropriate course through the guided self-placement "quiz" that EMU plans to administer to incoming freshman for the Fall 2005 school year during FastTrack. The only way I can think of to measure this "accuracy" (and who knows if it would be statistically significant...I may have to rack my brain for the SPSS knowledge I retained from undergrad.) is to do a somewhat logitudinal study.

Asking students for permission to follow them throughout the placement process, and their first semester of freshman comp. at EMU. I could request to see the results of the placement "quiz" and follow the students who take the corresponding course. At the end of the course they have chosen...I will seek permission to see the final grades of these same students. If the students pass the course that they placed themselves into, then the "quiz" worked for those students. I want to use a C or higher cut-off (or whatever is considered passing for university standards).

The only problem I foresee is the issue of ethics (I would have to use students not enrolled in my course). Would it be a problem if students knew that I would be looking at their grades at the end of the semester? Would that itself skew my results? Is it necessary to have a data pool that is statistically significant? I guess I can't worry too much about that right now.

The other idea I have is to look at the success rate of students who were placed based on ACT scores prior to the implementation of the guided placement program at EMU. This would determine if there is actually a difference between the two methods. Unfortunately, this may be too big.