Every story may have a beginning, but many beginnings are borne out of stories. The story behind Lincoln Writing Proficiency Program goes something like this: Once upon a time, a member of the board of trustees read a resume or job application written by a Lincoln student and was so alarmed that s/he convinced the board to issue a directive designed to ensure that all Lincoln graduates are proficient writers. A few years later the Lincoln Writing Proficiency Program (WPP) was conceived.
The goals/objectives of the WPP are:
- To create an environment at Lincoln University in which writing skills and writing instruction are given the highest priority
- To ensure that Lincoln University students graduate with a high standard of competence in formal English writing as reflected in course work throughout the disciplines
- To provide Lincoln University students with writing skills that will ensure the achievement of their lifelong personal and professional goals
Through all of these requirements we prepare our students to be proficient writers and to be successful at Lincoln and beyond, but we do very little to provide access to actual job opportunities. What good is success with limited access?
Other universities offer students access to online portfolios that are mined by employment agencies and all types of large and small companies. By allowing students to showcase work through electronic portfolios, Universities help their students to find employment and move on beyond college. There are many ways of doing this, but in this day and age, any portfolio that can be shared online is likely to attract much more attention than a physical paper portfolio and thus lead to greater access for student to succeed. Currently, most departments at Lincoln use writing portfolios that are stored as paper or computer files – never to be shared by anyone but the student and the advisor or department. Wouldn’t it be great if we required our students to make those portfolios online where they can be share by the world, ultimately giving Lincoln graduates greater access to success?
What is your view of success vs access? In your opinion, what is the role of the student writing portfolio beyond Lincoln? Do you have a favorite portfolio platform that you recommend? Should we work towards using a common portfolio platform or let each department choose a platform that works best for that department?
Drawing a dichotomy between success and access is interesting as it undermines the notion that access to a good job will follow from success in college. It is similar to the idea of learning transfer, such as in composition studies. We assume that students will be able to transfer what they learned about writing to future writing situations. However, that transfer is difficult and elusive, especially when the novel writing situation is an abstract application of the known application. Teaching for transfer is a writing pedagogy that research has shown to assist with the transfer of writing knowledge. Similarly, a writing-across-the-disciplines pedagogy could develop writing success as well as assist with access to the job market with a portfolio that both shows writing success as well as demonstrates knowledge in a field. Doing so virtually allows for linking from a resume to the more expansive demonstration of knowledge and skills. Imagine if your CV linked to a full text of your article!
ReplyDeleteMaybe we could consider the online portfolio a facilitation of transfer of skills. Thereby removing the assumption that success without facilitation leads to access. Students who succeed at creating a noticeable e-portfolio would have greater access. To your idea of linking CVs to publications; the National Institute of Health (the major federal funding agency for biomedical research) has its own biosketch format that requires you to include a link to your online bibliography, that in turn links to full-text articles. The world (wide web) is creating these linkages already - our students will be better served when we catch up.
DeleteTo avoid begging the important questions raised here, we need to assess both the Writing Proficiency Program and online portfolios and not assume that they achieve their goals. I believe students can easily make their writing portfolios available online, and there are independent companies and instruments for doing that.
ReplyDeleteIf I were hiring people and wanted to make sure that they could write or read or think, I would test them as well as analyze their resume or job applications as the member of the board of trustees did. As experience suggests, applicants' grades and "official" or self-submitted portfolios do not mean much these days.
Safro Kwame
Kwame, I like your idea of adding a metric to the WPP assessment that measures whether or not the writing portfolio helped students find jobs. We could also look a the assessment by sites like Portfolium (https://portfolium.com) that claim to help students get jobs straight out of college. Portfolium is free to students but companies pay to have access to "mine" students' portfolios. Many colleges and universities require their students to have a Portfolium account - thereby giving their students the upper hand over our students who are left to fend for themselves. In the end, the companies are still left to assess the quality of the resume and other Portfolium material, but the University has facilitated the access to jobs through the e-portfolio requirement.
ReplyDeletePlease join us for continued discussion on this topic on Tuesday at 2 pm! Library, room 302 - hope to see you there.