City College of San Francisco - California Competes

THEME II
There were significant indicators that the Department needed do something about this situation. Pass rates
were not only lower than desired, but varied considerably by section and instructor; there were serious
retention issues; and there was a common perception supported by some statistical evidence that significant
numbers of the students coming out of English 94 were not adequately prepared to be successful in
subsequent courses. In Fall 1999, a few faculty proposed a common, holistically graded in-class essay for
English 94 as the first step in determining what was going on in this “problem class.” From the outset,
one important and unusual feature of the proposal was that this exam was not to be given in lieu of a final
exam or account for a large portion of a student’s course grade. This was in response to the Department
and College’s collective memories of a common exit essay test given in English 1A some 15 years earlier
that resulted in much lower pass rates and negatively affected graduation and transfer rates for the several
years it was in place. The English 94 common exam proposal specified that the exam was to take place
during week 12 of the semester and was not to be a final, summative, “barrier” exam.
The proposal still galvanized several different factions among the 100+ faculty in the English Department. 7
However, the faculty proponents of the common exam found that very few of the opponents were actually
teaching English 94. The English 94 instructors knew that what was happening at the 94 level—both in
class and with regard to student outcomes—was not working well. They were losing 43 percent of their
students over the course of the semester; even after first census, the classes lost 29 percent of their enrollment.
In addition, the success rates for students who did complete the class were in need of improvement,
ranging from 54 percent to 65 percent. 8 The faculty responsible for teaching English 94 felt compelled to
come together to determine what needed to be prioritized in the course and then work together to make
the course a more effective bridge to future success for the students.
The process and the lessons. In Spring 2000, a pilot of the common exam was conducted by a limited
number of volunteer faculty. They carefully developed protocols for administering the exam and developed
a holistic rubric grounded in the outcomes established in the existing course outline of record. The
results of this first effort were startling. Only 32 percent of the students taking the common exam were
judged to have met the threshold for success established in the rubric. However, in that same semester,
over 64 percent of the students received passing grades. It was clear to the faculty that they needed to
revise the rubric downward; that is, the rubric set the expectations too high. More significantly, it was
also clear that the existing course outline did not reflect what students were capable of learning when they
entered English 94. A second pilot was undertaken in the Spring of 2001. This time all sections of English
94 were tested and some of the procedural problems were rectified. While the pass rates were still only
32 percent, a follow-up survey revealed that faculty and students found the common exam process to be
positive and valuable. The dichotomy between the common exam pass rates and the overall course pass
rates could be partially attributed to the limitations inherent in using a single writing sample, particularly
a timed in-class writing sample. However, it was also clear to the faculty that the course outline did not
provide a reasonable set of expectations and, as a result, each teacher was creating his or her own set of
outcomes expectations.
The response to this single effort to develop a more useful assessment of student learning has been profound
for the English Department. The most obvious immediate implication was the need to thoroughly
review and revise the course outline for English 94 to make it consistent with what students are capable
of accomplishing in a single course at this level of their developmental process. However, English 94 sits
in the middle of a sequence of five levels of reading and writing classes designed to prepare students for
college-level, university transfer writing, and critical thinking coursework. If English 94 were going to be
revised, and the primary objective of this revision was to provide more clearly articulated and realistic
7 Approximately 65 faculty are full-time and 35-40 are part-time; about 75 percent of the sections are taught by full-time faculty.
8 Spring semester pass rates tend to be higher than fall semester pass rates and fluctuate considerably from year to year.
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