ERIC ED536982: Literary Study, Measurement, and the Sublime: Disciplinary Assessment

2011·2.5 MB·English

by  ERIC

LITERARY STUDY, MEASUREMENT,
AND THE SUBLIME:
DISCIPLINARY ASSESSMENT
Editors
Donna Heiland and Laura J. Rosenthal
With the assistance of
Cheryl Ching
LITERARY STUDY, MEASUREMENT, AND THE SUBLIME:
DISCIPLINARY ASSESSMENT
DONNA HEILAND AND LAURA J. ROSENTHAL, EDITORS
WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF CHERYL CHING
The Teagle Foundation is a New York-based philanthropic organization that
intends to be an influential national voice and a catalyst for change to improve
undergraduate student learning in the arts and sciences.
The opinions, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in the essays included in
this collection are the authors’ own and should not be attributed to the
Foundation.
Copyright © 2011 by The Teagle Foundation.
“18-Item Need for Cognition Scale” by John T. Cacioppo, Richard E. Petty, and
Chuan Feng Kao was first published in Journal of Personality Assessment48.3 (1984)
and is reprinted with permission of the authors.
“A Progressive Case for Educational Standardization: How Not to Respond to
Calls for Common Standards,” by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein was first
published in the May-June 2008 issue of Academe. Copyright © 2008 by American
Association of University Professors. The essay has been revised by the authors
and is reprinted with permission of the original publisher.
“Elephant Painting” by Hong, date unknown, is reprinted with permission from
ExoticWorldGifts.com.
Published by The Teagle Foundation
570 Lexington Avenue, 38th Floor, New York, New York 10022
www.teagle.org
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted, reproduced or
transmitted in any format or by any means electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording and information storage and retrieval, without written
permission from the publisher.
Editorial inquiries and permission requests should be sent to The Teagle Foundation
by mail (see the address above) or electronic mail ([email protected]).
ISBN: 978-0-9831236-0-6
Cover image: Newtonby William Blake, 1795/circa 1805.
Photo credit: Tate, London / Art Resource, NY
Book design by Swandivedigital.
Set in Baskerville.
For Bob Connor, an extraordinary leader for the humanities
and for liberal education.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD ..............................................................................................................................7
Richard L. Morrill
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................9
Donna Heiland and Laura J. Rosenthal
Assessment, Liberal Education, and Literary Study
TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING—MINE AND THEIRS..............................................................27
Carol Geary Schneider
MAKING THE CASE FOR DISCIPLINE-BASED ASSESSMENT..................................................47
Rachelle L. Brooks
WHERE HAS ASSESSMENT BEEN IN THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION?
A DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE..............................................................................................59
Rosemary G. Feal, David Laurence, and Stephen Olsen
MEASURING THE HUMANITIES: THE SLIPPERY SLOPE FROM
ASSESSMENT TO STANDARDIZATION....................................................................................69
Michael Holquist
Sublimity, Creativity, and Learning
THE PYGMIES IN THE CAGE: THE FUNCTION OF THE SUBLIME IN LONGINUS ....................97
W. Robert Connor
APPROACHING THE INEFFABLE: FLOW, SUBLIMITY, AND STUDENT LEARNING ..............115
Donna Heiland
FEARFUL SYMMETRIES: RUBRICS AND ASSESSMENT........................................................133
Sarah Webster Goodwin
POSTHUMANIST MEASURES: ELEPHANTS, ASSESSMENT,
AND THE RETURN OF CREATIVITY........................................................................................153
Lucinda Cole
ASSESSMENT IN LITERARY EDUCATION..............................................................................171
Charles Altieri
Politics, Institutions, and Disciplinary Goals
ASSESSMENT, LITERARY STUDY, AND DISCIPLINARY FUTURES........................................183
Laura J. Rosenthal
THE FUTURE OF LITERARY CRITICISM: ASSESSMENT, THE CURRICULARIZED
CLASSROOM, AND THICK READING ....................................................................................199
Charles M. Tung
A PROGRESSIVE CASE FOR EDUCATIONAL STANDARDIZATION:
HOW NOT TO RESPOND TO CALLS FOR COMMON STANDARDS..........................................217
Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein
ENGLISH DEPARTMENTS, ASSESSMENT, AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING ..................227
David Mazella
Case Studies and Templates
FROM SKEPTICISM TO MEASURED ENTHUSIASM: THE STORY OF TWO
LITERARY SCHOLARS’ INTRODUCTION TO ASSESSMENT IN THE MAJOR..........................259
Kirsten T. Saxton and Ajuan Maria Mance
A CAUTIONARY TALE ABOUT SYSTEM-WIDE ASSESSMENT IN THE STATE UNIVERSITY
OF NEW YORK: WHY AND HOW FACULTY VOICES CAN AND MUST UNITE..........................277
Pat Belanoff and Tina Good
READING FOREIGN LITERATURE CRITICALLY: DEFINITIONS AND ASSESSMENT..............309
Jenny Bergeron and Russell A. Berman
THE COLLABORATIVE WORLD LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT:
A TEAMWORK APPROACH TO ASSESSING STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES ....................321
José G. Ricardo-Osorio
HOW TO CONSTRUCT A SIMPLE, SENSIBLE, USEFUL DEPARTMENTAL
ASSESSMENT PROCESS ......................................................................................................335
Barbara E. Walvoord
INDEX....................................................................................................................................353
FOREWORD
THE TEAGLE FOUNDATION HAS ANactive program of communica-
tion, reflecting its mission to share the knowledge that arises from its work
and the experiences of its grantees. The Foundation’s website is an important
part of the effort to disseminate ideas and practices and includes a wide vari-
ety of reports, opinion pieces, and essays by Teagle staff members, grantees,
and leaders in higher education. For the first time, a full-length book is appear-
ingas an original publication on the Teagle website. This collection of essays,
Literary Study, Measurement, and the Sublime: Disciplinary Assessment, edited by
Donna Heiland and Laura J. Rosenthal, represents an important new venture
in the Foundation’s communication program (it will appear in print as well,
so that readers can engage with it in the format they prefer). The book is
the product of many authors, including the editors, both of whom have
written essays for it. But it is the creativity and the persistence of the edi-
tors that explains the appearance of this new publication. The editors have
reviewed the essays rigorously, to ensure that they meet the highest aca-
demic standards.
The essays represent an enticing and interesting series of ideas and experi-
ences about the work of assessment in literature and related fields that often
resist the language and the methods of standard forms of assessment—often,
one might add, for very good reasons. Yet it is just the play of ideas and inter-
pretations that one finds in literary studies that highlights the collection. The
opinions of various authors about the uses and the abuses of assessment cover
a wide spectrum of views that reflect the perspectives that the Foundation finds
in its own work with its grantees. This is to be expected and even welcomed,
for little learning occurs if answers are easy or consensus is artificial. In pub-
lishing this work, Donna Heiland and Laura Rosenthal have contributed signif-
icantly to an understanding of the range and the possibilities of assessment,
and to the work of the Foundation.
Richard L. Morrill
President, The Teagle Foundation
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INTRODUCTION
DONNA HEILAND AND LAURA J. ROSENTHAL
ASSESSMENT IS CURRENTLY RESHAPING the academic landscape. In
a recent survey of over fifty English department chairs and graduate directors
conducted in anticipation of the 2010 meeting of the Association of Department
Chairs (ADE) East, 86% reported that their department was engaged in some
form of learning outcomes assessment (“ADE Survey”). While this high per-
centage may not necessarily obtain throughout all English and foreign lan-
guage departments, only two percent of those who responded reported that
they were neither engaged in assessment projects nor had plans to set one in
motion. Of course, this simple statistic represents a wide range of practices.
Inevitably, some departments are spending most of their energy trying to fig-
ure out ways to generate just enough information to satisfy the demands of
accountability; at the other end of the spectrum, some departments are seeing
ways to use assessment to rethink student learning in their programs. Most fall
somewhere in between. Faculty responses at most institutions inevitably vary
as well: some instructors have embraced assessment, some are cautiously
exploring its possibilities, and others have vehemently protested its institution-
alization. Yet, it has begun to reach a saturation point in academic culture.
Even Facebook now offers as one of its “Shite Gifts for Academics” an
“Overly-Enthusiastic Assessment Guru,” presumably of the kind that no one
wants to see at the next department meeting. Love or hate it, learning out-
comes assessment is becoming an important part of academic life in English
and foreign language departments.
While assessment has become an occupational reality (and, some might
say, an occupational hazard), in many professional venues for literary and cul-
tural studies there has been relatively little discussion about this process and its
implications. While professional issues are regularly and vigorously debated at
conferences and in journals, discussions of assessment tend to be relegated to
more administrative venues and treated as practical matters.1These discus-
sions take place in meetings of campus committees, in departments, and in
informal settings (by this point most instructors have probably opined about
assessment around the proverbial water cooler), but often do not move much
beyond these contexts. While most departments, then, are conducting assess-
ment projects, and while many faculty members currently participate in those
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