2006 - NECIT Seminar

Final Report

Rose N. Yesu

 
Although my developmental reading and writing classes are quite diverse – at least four nationalities in each class – and inclusiveness is one of my criteria for text adoption, the October 2005 NECIT Conference convinced me that I could do more to nurture diversity and promote inclusion in all my classes.  And so, when I started the 2006 NECIT Seminar, I intended to use the time to focus on my Preparing for College Reading II.  Of the four courses I traditionally teach, my PCRII syllabus and materials have changed the least in the last five – seven years. If time permitted, I decided, I would also revise some of my English Composition I materials as they, too, might need updating.  As so often happens with my projects and best-of-intentions, the boundaries and goals of my NECIT project quickly broadened from the narrow scope of my PCRII classroom to a much larger campus wide scope: the English Department’s writing placement prompt for incoming freshmen and the College’s reading and writing placement procedures and practices for incoming freshmen.

Although most of the NECIT seminar readings influenced my teaching in some way, Claude Steele’s August 1999 Atlantic Monthly article “Thin Ice: ‘Stereotype Threat’ and Black College Students” had an immediate, dramatic, and far-reaching impact on my teaching and on the College’s writing placement practices and procedures.  Steele’s article and newly coined and defined phrase “’stereotype threat’ – the threat of being viewed through the lens of a negative stereotype, or fear of doing something that would inadvertently confirm that stereotype” -- reminded me of “the self-fulfilling prophecy” research that I had read of in my undergraduate teaching methodology courses and that I saw in my students during my first years of teaching at the junior/senior high school levels. After decades of teaching, “Thin Ice…” gave new meaning to the term self-fulfilling prophecy.

However, instead of applying the “stereotype threat” to only black males, I understood for the first time that “Everyone experiences stereotype threat. We are all members of some group about which negative stereotypes exist, from white males and Methodists to women and the elderly…we can feel mistrustful and apprehensive…” (Steele). Then, I took a long, hard look at my current classes and reviewed my class lists for the past three semesters.  What did I see?  Seats filled with white and black student athletes; Hispanic, Haitian, and Cape Verdeans; women; Muslim and atheists; Irish and WASP coeds; senior citizens; and evening students who experience the same “stereotype threat” as the black college students described in Steele’s article.

The possibility for change promised in Claude Steele, et al’s research prevented the depth and the breadth of “stereotype threat” in my classroom from frustrating and overwhelming me.  And so, with determination, I decided to replicate in my classroom the successful techniques that Steele and his colleagues had developed.  With every assignment – not just my PCRII assignments, tests, and projects but also my English Composition I essays – I gave specific, clear criteria for evaluating each assignment so that everyone – black, white, Asian, Hispanic – would know that they would all be evaluated using the same criteria.  Then, I reassured each and every student in my classroom that he or she could succeed with the assignment as long as he or she adhered to my directions and standards for measurement.  Whenever I gave this reassurance, I made sure to make eye contact with each member of the class.  In addition, I put the criteria for evaluation in written form and distributed them to my students whenever possible.    Finally, I thought it important to let my students know how similar we are – that I am a minority, despite my appearance.   I wove relevant personal facts into classroom discussion: my parents emigrated from Italy and had elementary school educations; I started school with an Italian accent; I come from a blue collar family – my father was a bricklayer and my mother a domestic; I have a auditory learning disability that made learning to read and grades K-4 very difficult.  In one class – predominantly women – it also seemed important to tell my students that I am divorced: I did. 

As I started making changes to my PCRII and English Composition I materials and teaching methodology, the faculty voted to go off work-to-rule, and monthly English Department meetings began.  At the first, the English chair called for the formation of a committee to look at the English Department’s decade-old writing placement prompt and its writing placement process.  When I volunteered to serve as co-chair of the four-person Writing Prompt Committee, a new phase began in my NECIT project.  For, after a quick review of the English Department’s welcoming letter, writing placement prompt and the College’s reading and writing placement process, I knew that all could be significantly improved and be more welcoming, inclusive, and diverse if the members of the Writing Prompt Committee employed the theory and practices recommended by Steele, et al.  And so, I shared Steele’s research and recommendations with my three colleagues.  They agreed to incorporate Steele, et al’s techniques into our work as long as I served as final arbiter on materials: I did. 

With this change-in-plans, I spent the semester adapting my classroom strategies and revising and developing new materials for my PCRII and English Comp I classes. As co-chair of the Writing Placement Prompt Committee, I advocated for and ensured that Steele, et al’s theory and recommendations were incorporated into as much of the Committee’s work as possible.   What follows is a description of the products of my semester’s NECIT work.

Preparing for College Reading II: Techniques, Assignments, and Tests

• Significantly revised and reintroduced the Literacy Autobiography to my syllabus (Attachment A- Literacy Autobiography);
• Established clear, often written,  guidelines for the content of each test and project and criteria for grading them;
• Let students know that they could achieve an A or a B on the test/project as long had completed all assignments and prepared for the test/project;
• Focused classroom discussion of  Johnson Spencer’s One Minute for Yourself (first book on PCRII syllabus) and the interpretation of the Harrington-O’Shea Career Assessment Inventory  on global practices in terms of the work world and careers for men and women;
• Revised the One Minute … project – a five-year career plan – (Attachment B – Five-Year Career Plan) to be more inclusive, especially in terms of nontraditional careers;
• Focused classroom discussion on Frederick Douglass’s narrative (second book on PCRII syllabus) on global literacy and literacy successes and failure in the native lands of my foreign-born students;
• Revised my Frederick Douglass… project (Attachment C – Frederick Douglass Project) to promote inclusion,
• Focused classroom discussion on  Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon (fhird book on PCRII syllabus) on the treatment of the handicapped in the late-50’s and early-60’s – the setting of the book – and now; 
• Focused discussion on the treatment of the handicapped in the birth countries of foreign-born students;
• Revised the Flowers for Algernon project (Attachment D – Flowers for Algernon Project) to honor diversity and foster inclusion; and
• Accepted the recommendation of my students to reverse the order of the readings in the future: Flowers for Algernon, Frederick Douglass, and One Minute Manager.

English Composition I: Techniques, Assignments, and Tests

• Revised the grading grid (Attachment E – English Composition I Grading Grid) and thoroughly reviewed it every time I assigned an essay;
• Thoroughly reviewed the English Department’s Qualifying Exam and the standard’s  by which these essays were graded (Attachment F – Qualifying Exam Standards) several times during the first month of classes and then before each of the three in-class QE essays. Also, included a copy of the standards on the back of each QE assignment; and
• Developed assignments like Attachment G – Compare/Contrast Essay that encouraged an awareness of and sensitivity to diversity.

Writing Placement Process and Prompts

• Revised the English Department’s welcoming letter (Attachments H – English Department’s Welcoming Letter/Marconi and I – English Department’s Welcoming Letter/Norris) to make it more inclusive and diverse and to ensure that all incoming students clearly understood the purpose of testing and the standards by which their placement essays would be judged;
• Focused the writing placement assignments on topics and included brief readings that encouraged inclusion and diversity;
• Clearly identified the criteria by which essays are judged and then indicated that the students could do well;
• Developed an explanatory letter (Attachment J – Explanation of Placement Scores) to be read to all incoming freshmen immediately after they received their reading and writing placement results and before they selected classes.  This letter clearly explains the criteria by which students’ essays were judged, explains the results of the placement scores; and reassures incoming freshmen that they can succeed at Massasoit;
• Developed a retake prompt for those students who wished to appeal their placement scores; and
• Made the following recommendations to the English Department:
• have a new prompt each year (approved by the English Department),
• have a retake prompt (rejected by the English Department),
• make placement scores are valid for one year (approved by the English Department and rejected by Director of Assessment), and
• to ensure consistency, require a placement essay – read by members of the English Department – when students complete their ESL courses (tabled at the April English Department meeting)

Initially, I thought that I had too many years in education and too much experience to realize a significant professional growth as a NECIT seminarian.  I was wrong, dead wrong. My NECIT semester is one of the highlights of my 30+ years in teaching. 

 Work Cited

Steele, Claude M. “Thin Ice: ‘Stereotype Threat’ and Black College Students.”

            theatlantic.com. 1999 August. 17 Oct. 2004 <www.theatlantic.com/ issues/

            99aug/9908sterotype.htm>