Article Summary

Investigating Academic Literacy Expectations: A Curriculum Audit Model is a study on what incoming college freshman literacy levels need to be in order to be able to read and understand college level text. This study wanted to compare the general education text to the career technical courses. High schools have been focusing their efforts on career and college ready curriculums by using the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). “Major goals of the CCSS have been clarifying standards beginning with what is considered college and career ready and systematically backward benchmarking each educational grade level down the ladder through kindergarten.” Unfortunately statistics show that the number of first year college students that are placed in one or more developmental reading courses is increasing.

            This study used Southside Community College (SCC) which has about 31,401 students. Twenty-nine percent of freshmen sections offered by the English department were developmental course section. Of full time freshmen, 37.8% are placed in these classes based off their COMPASS or ACT score. This study was driven by the following questions: “What constitutes college-level text readiness at SCC? What are the text expectations, including text types, tasks, and goals in developmental reading courses, in general education courses, and in career technical education courses? How do these expectations align? What is the culture of reading at SCC?” This study collected data for two years but most of it came in one semester. The data was collected by using a mixture of methods including a classroom observation checklist, a faculty focus group questionnaire, a student focus group questionnaire, and online faculty survey, an online student survey and a series of text analysis. 

            Some key observations obtained were that college readiness does not have a consistent definition. Faculty expectations are that students should be able to read independently. Texts were mostly novels or workbook styles which are geared toward comprehension checks. So they want students to be able to develop vocabulary and finding the main idea. Text is generally used to support the instructor. But that most professors rely on PowerPoint or other replacements. The results also showed “the types and difficulty levels in the developmental reading courses are distinctly different from those being used in the introductory- level general/ career technical education course.” The study goes into many scenarios that could make the result more conclusive. It also talks about some of the limitations that were brought on. Overall it seems that introductory course as SCC use textbooks for more a learning facts rather than gaining a deep understanding. Some major stumbling blocks that were uncovered with this study are that first of all there is not a clear and consistent definition for college ready text. It seems as though there are definitions out there but none that people are consistently using. Also expanding the study to look at the expectations of the next level of courses and how the text is used. The bigger picture here is that there needs to be a team effort coming from the national level as well as the use of postsecondary literacy researchers and institutional evaluation teams.

Article Evaluation

This article is very well done. There are many easy to read charts that make the pertinent information stick out. This article also has everything clearly labeled. It is easy to find conclusions or how the study was ran. It clearly talks about the many different approaches to collect data for this survey. It is clear how to improve the research. The setbacks that could help make the results clearer are also discussed.

            The only aspect that I find confusing is that there is no statistics. Instead of showing what they found or exactly what was discussed, they give generalities. I understand the purpose of the study was to investigate and I can easily find what they summarize as the findings but I wish I could see some of the more specific information that was found.

            I am not sure that I so much question the results. I am just not sure exactly what they found. Part of the article is about how to fix the curriculum to help students become ready for college. But then it felt like it was comparing how the remedial classes text were made more for facts than for understanding like the usual freshman English classes text. My real question is exactly what they are trying to prove. I know the curriculum needs fixed but I am not sure looking at the remedial classes is where we need to look. It starts with the high school level but then how do we separate college versus career ready? Does the Common Core really address this?

            The way I would use this article is that when designing courses, especially remedial classes, they need to test for understanding not just fact checking. The books that high schoolers read are challenging in my experience but the questions that need to be asked should challenge the students. Making sure that the questions ask students to read, process and apply what they learned is the key. I need to keep in mind that just because a student struggles and is now in a remedial course does not necessarily mean that I need to design an easier course, because they still need to be college or career ready.

Citation

Armstrong, S. L., Stahl, N. A., & Kantner, J. M. (2015). Investigating Academic Literacy Expectations: A Curriculum Audit Model. Journal of Developmental Education,  38(2), 2-23.