Nominated for LRC Exemplary Practice 2018:
Library: MLS Librarians, Faculty, or Paraprofessionals who work in a library
The Lake-Sumter State College Writing Emporium
Kevin Arms
Executive Summary
As a result of SB 1720, more and more Lake-Sumter State students are arriving in our 1101 courses woefully underprepared for college-level writing. According to the data collection, we conducted using Accuplacer in the spring of 2017, approximately 50% of our students are not college ready when they begin 1101. This is alarming, but far more disconcerting is the fact that, according to the Accuplacer data, 50% of our students are still not college ready by the end of 1101. We have brilliant teachers here, and there is no doubt that these students are better off for having been in their classrooms. However, the unfortunate reality is that at least half of our students are either failing 1101 or passing it without actually being ready to perform college-level writing. What we’re doing isn’t working, and the majority of LSSC instructors know it. In a survey of LSSC full-time and adjunct faculty, when asked the question, “On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being completely unprepared and 10 being extremely well prepared, how well prepared do you believe your students are at the beginning of the semester to handle the rigor of the written portion of your courses?” we received an average score of 5.
Even in courses where ENC 1101 is a prerequisite, our students are not sufficiently prepared to succeed in the written portion of their classes. Our students’ needs are changing, and the approach to instruction needs to change along with them if we’re going to have any hope of overcoming the obstacles created by SB 1720. To that end, we set out to create a redesigned version of ENC 1101 that was grounded in data. To accomplish that, we conducted a literature review that allowed us to identify and incorporate evidence-based best practices. We also while conducted internal research to ensure that our decisions were tailored to the specific needs of our students and our college.