Assessment Activity for ENG 102: Writing a summary

Summarizing is a key skill in English 102. It requires students to read or listen carefully, to identify main ideas, and to paraphrase those ideas accurately. We have chosen summarizing as the focus of assessment this semester. This activity should be completed sometime before the end of April, 2008.

Participation in this specific assessment activity is voluntary. However, all faculty teaching ENG 102 must assess their students, and this group activity meets that requirement. The Assessment Committee has selected the sources for this activity and will produce the report summarizing participation and results.

Please use one of the following sources for this assessment activity. All are available in library databases to which we subscribe or on the web:

• Cellphones vital in developing world, by Malcolm Foster (International Business Times, 27 January, 2007)
• Gas Taxes Are High Enough, by Mary E. Peters (The Wall Street Journal, 18 January, 2008) [ProQuest database]
• Now that travel can be virtual, will congestion virtually disappear? by Patricia L. Mokhtarian  (Scientific American, October 1997) [Scientific American]
• Information Literacy: The Perils of Online Research  [streaming video; available online]

If you would like to use an article for class practice in summarizing, please use:

• 2-year college students rarely use advisors, survey shows, by Elyse Ashburn (Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 1, 2006) [Chronicle of Higher Education]

If you would like to use a video for class practice in summarizing, please use:

• Note-taking [streaming video; available online]

Here are some options for this activity:

• Assign the practice. Then designate one or more of the other sources for the assessment activity.
• Allow students to choose one of the sources for the assessment activity.
• Assign some or all of the sources outside of class; then select one for summarizing in class.

Here is a rubric you can use for evaluating these summaries. Students should either include all the information about the source in a "citation sentence" (for example, In "Private Lives, Public Spaces," published in the Winter 2003 issue of Dissent, Molly Smithsimon explains some key conflicts inherent in surveillance of places people think of as public.) or include a formal MLA citation at the end of the paragraph, or have students do both. Note that this summary should emphasize summarizing and paraphrasing. Students should quote minimally, if at all. The summary paragraph should not include their ideas, only those from the article.

A Writer's Resource has two sections that address summarizing. See Section 6a (#4) and Section 22c (#1).

Here are several web sites that address summarizing:

• How to Write a Summary ( Oregon State University)
• How to Write a Summary (Washington State University)
• Quoting and Paraphrasing Sources (University of Wisconsin -- Madison)
• You Quote It, You Note It! (Vaughan Memorial Library, Acadia University)

Submitting the summary:

How you have students submit the summary to you is your choice. To submit the summary for the assessment project, have them single-space the paragraph, remove their name and any other identifying information from the document, and save it in rich-text format using their section number and their eGCC username as the filename (for example: 1234kschwalm.rtf or 1234astudent.rtf)

Save the file to the desktop or to My Documents. Then close Word and copy the document to the Department Assessment folder for ENG102. Go to the S drive in My Computer. Click on Courses | ENG102 | Department Assessment. (This is a drop box, so students won't be able to see the file once they drop it into the folder.) Students must save the file and close Word before they drop the file into the drop box.

You can set up this activity in Blackboard and have students submit their summaries through the Assignment Manager. See Marla's Blackboard Tips for specific instructions.

Please send an email to me with the approximate number of students participating and a short explanation of how you structured this activity. (In-class or out-of-class writing; preparation activities; and anything else that you feel is important). This activity should be completed sometime during the month of March, but we'll welcome submissions at any time.

	Last updated by Karen Schwalm on April 03, 2008 .  Legal Notice. http://web.gccaz.edu/English/Assessment/Spring08/ENG102.htm