English faculty and librarians present at international writing conference

The group described the procedure and results for a collaborative assessment of first-year writing students' source use during a panel at the International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference at Auburn University in June.

Three first-year writing faculty and two library faculty from Elon comprised a panel titled “Reassessing Information Literacy: Methods and Findings from a Collaborative Assessment of College Writers’ Source Use” at the International Writing Across the Curriculum conference (IWAC) held June 4-6, 2018, at Auburn University.

The English faculty were Dan Burns, visiting assistant professor of English; Li Li, assistant professor of English; and Paula Patch, senior lecturer in English and College Writing coordinator. The library faculty were Teresa LePors, assistant librarian and coordinator of library research and scholarly services, and Patrick Rudd, assistant librarian and coordinator of library instruction and outreach services.

All five panelists are members of the multidisciplinary ENG 110 assessment committee that has been studying how students in ENG 110 Writing: Argument and Inquiry, the first-year writing requirement at Elon, use sources in research assignments. The commmittee developed a collaborative assessment process, focuses on looking closely at texts produced by students in ENG 110, involving librarians, contingent writing faculty, and permanent writing faculty that allowed it to bridge job status and disciplinary perspectives on information literacy instruction and take a deeper look at how students use library resources in their writing.