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 Assessment 48.3 (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: Newton by 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 AN active 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- ing as 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 7 8 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