Proposal for Accelerated Pre- Transfer English at RCCD What’s the Problem? The Proposed Solution Extended Benefits Objections and Responses Action Plan Sources and Resources

What’s the Problem? Of RCCD students who enter 60A, only about 1 in 7 pass 1A. So in a class of 30 students, only about 4 of them will eventually make it through English 1A. That’s a huge loss of time, resources, and above all human potential.

Okay, we could hardly do worse. What is the Proposed Solution? English 80, a six-unit, one- semester pre-transfer course that would accept any students not placing into Eng 1A.

English 80 is designed around two key principles with a record of improving student success: Shortened Pre-Transfer Sequence Accelerated Pedagogy and Course Design

1.Shorten the sequence of pre-transfer courses.

The barrier to student success is partly structural. Because students have seven exit points, the attrition compounds, as follows: Do they pass 60A?63% If they pass 60A, do they enroll in 60B?64% If they enroll, do they pass 60B? 82% If they pass 60B, do they enroll in 50?77% If they enroll, do they pass 50? 87% If they pass 50, do they enroll in 1A73% If they enroll, do they pass 1A? 87%.63 X.64 X.82 X.77 X.87 X.73 X.87 =14%

The more levels of developmental courses a student must go through, the less likely that student is to ever complete college English or Math. Bailey, Thomas. (February 2009). Rethinking Developmental Education. CCRC Brief. Community College Research Center. Teachers College, Columbia University.

So shortening the sequence can reduce the number of possible exit points for students. But does that really result in greater student success? The data from Chabot College suggest that it does.

Chabot has a two-track pre-transfer curriculum: Standard track: 101A and 101B Accelerated track: 102

Evidence from Chabot Accelerated students enroll into freshman English at almost twice the rate of students who take the two-semester track: –Two-semester track: 28% of students enroll in freshman English. –Accelerated course: 54.6 % of students enroll in freshman English.

Evidence from Chabot And once they get there, they are just as successful: –Freshman English success rates for both cohorts: 82%

Evidence from Chabot So overall, the accelerated cohort succeeds in freshman English at about twice the rate: –Non-accelerated cohort success: 23% –Accelerated cohort success: 45%

2. Accelerated Pedagogy and Course Design Reducing the exit points is beneficial in itself, but the shift to an acceleration model calls for a shift in pedagogy and course design.

Basic Principles of an Accelerated Curriculum Create Community. Challenge Capacity. Focus on Core Skills: “backward design.”

Community Build community, respect, and love. Reach into the students’ worlds; foster camaraderie and a sense of safety, so that students “watch each others’ backs.” The range of abilities and experiences creates more opportunity for all students.

Capacity Challenge students’ capacity to learn rather than drill their deficits. Create high- challenge, low-risk settings and tasks, so that students feel comfortable stretching, experimenting, making mistakes.

Backwards Design: 1A All the Time Redesign curricula away from front-loading of discrete sub-skills toward giving students practice in core skills and ways of thinking required at the college level. Students engage in the same kinds of reading, thinking, and writing as in transfer English, with more scaffolding and support.

Apply these three basic principles— community, capacity, backwards design— through Specific Curricular and Pedagogical Accelerants: Immersion Engage the Big Questions The Studio Class Core Skills: Reading Core Skills: Source-based Writing Meta-cognition and Transparency

Accelerants: Immersion A single, six-unit course demands student commitment. Students attend class three or four days a week to build community and consolidate learning. Increased pace of learning creates positive feedback, momentum.

Accelerants: Engage the Big Questions Activities and assignments—reading, writing, discussion—are designed to elicit higher order reasoning with respect to some of the larger conversations of our culture and polity.

Accelerants: The Studio Class The studio class—like an art class or a shop class—creates a safe space for experiment, play, mistakes. Writing is approached as a craft, and the focus is on the expansion of capacity rather than on the elimination of error. For example, students practice strategies for writing effective sentences, with varied structures, rather than merely correcting bad sentences.

Accelerants: The Core Skills The bulk of class time is devoted to reading, discussion, and the students’ own writing.

Accelerants: Core Skills Intensive and Extensive Reading A variety of texts, including challenging, college- level texts, move students from where they are outwards, to situate themselves and their experience in larger contexts and broader conversations. Intensive reading, modeled and practiced in class, develops strategies of active reading and critical thinking. Extensive reading, including one full-length work, builds fluency, vocabulary, enjoyment, a sense of accomplishment.

Accelerants: Core Skills Source-Based Writing Major writing projects require students to integrate skills from the outset. Basic skills, craft, habits of mind are built up in the context of these larger projects— the studio model. Projects draw on multiple sources— personal experience, texts, cultural artifacts, field work—so as to bring students into the big conversations.

Accelerants: Meta-cognition and Transparency Students are required to reflect on their own processes of reading, writing, and learning, and on the processes and goals of the course itself.

Extended Benefits The acceleration model energizes pedagogy throughout the composition program. Student success and engagement improve across the curriculum. The acceleration model is scalable: growing the acceleration track will not require more money or faculty. Greater and quicker success means higher real efficiency; we can ultimately shift resources to the transfer level and help more students achieve their educational goals.

Objections and Responses Aren’t we lowering our standards to let many basic students in to Eng 1A after only one semester of preparation? Does the course emphasize quantity of reading over quality of reading? Does the focus on reading make this a reading course? Is 6 units too many? What happens to students who do not pass? What motivation will students who place into Eng 50 students have to take the course? Can’t you pilot the course before putting it into the curriculum?

Aren’t we lowering our standards to let many basic students in to Eng 1A after only one semester of preparation? As we have seen, based on the evidence, the opposite is the case. At Chabot, students who take the accelerated pre- transfer course pass freshman English at the same rate as students who take the two-semester track. Yet nearly twice as many accelerated students pass into freshman English! So overall student success is double for the accelerated students!

Does the course emphasize quantity of reading over quality of reading? No. The course aims at a mix of intensive reading of short, challenging texts with extensive reading of at least one book- length, easier work that will serve as a bridge between students’ experience and the big questions. Students need to develop their capacity with both kinds of reading, and they need to learn how to draw from both in their writing.

Does the focus on reading make this a reading course? The teaching of reading is intrinsic to the teaching of composition, and all of our composition courses have a reading component. The acceleration model—1A all the time—means that we bring critical reading in from the start, and that we put a greater emphasis on reading than has typically been placed on it in our other pre- transfer composition courses. Because we are demanding more of the pre-transfer students in the acceleration model, the COR articulates in considerable detail (especially in the Content section) the skills that instructors need to address, in reading as well as in the other learning outcomes. But these are all skills that would be addressed likewise in a well-taught Eng 1A course, and that we believe should be addressed in the pre-transfer courses as well.

Does the focus on reading make this a reading course? We welcome the expertise and input of reading faculty regarding how we can improve Eng 80. A couple of possibilities also present themselves for coordination between the reading and writing faculty. One possibility is that Eng 80 could, now or later, be designed with a view to making it cross-listed, in both Reading and English, with faculty from both disciplines teaching it and helping to develop it over time. Another possibility is that the Reading discipline could design a parallel course, but with somewhat different emphases, that could serve likewise as a prerequisite for Eng 1A. There may be other possibilities as well.

Is 6 units too many? Let’s compare it with the current unit requirements: –50% fewer units than moving through 60A, B, and C. –25% fewer than moving through 60B and 50. –50% more than moving through 50. –If we imagine an accelerated class with 1/3 of the students from each group, it still averages 25% fewer units. In reality, the average will probably be better than that. –And that’s without taking into account the effects of lower attrition and higher success rates. –Conclusion: 6 units creates an immersive, accelerated experience while still greatly reducing the number of units students must take in pre-transfer composition.

What happens to students who do not succeed? They can try again at the accelerated course, or enroll into the normal sequence. In short, they will be in the same boat as students who do not pass a course in the normal sequence. True, the short-term sacrifice will be more for the student who fails a 6-unit class, but overall, as we have seen, attrition—and that means lost time for students—is much higher in the multi- course sequence.

What motivation will students who place into Eng 50 students have to take the course? It’s probably true that most students eligible for English 50 will see no reason to take Eng 80. Some, however, may be drawn in by the course material or by the desire to profit from the accelerated approach. Previous instructors might have recommended it.

Can’t you pilot the course before putting it into the curriculum? The easiest way to pilot a course is by putting it into the curriculum and testing it out on a small scale. We can then modify or even abandon the COR as we gather experience and data.

Action Plan Approve Eng 80 COR at one or more of the colleges. Approve Eng 80 as Eng 1A prerequisite, district-wide. Pilot at least two sections, spring Promote the sections: blurb in schedule. Manage enrollment: placement, IDSes, counselors. Train and support instructors. Assess SLOs; track and compare student success in 1A. Improve and revise: based on what we learn, we can revise the COR, etc. with the ultimate goal of approving a district-wide Eng 80.

Sources and Resources The data on RCCD courses are from Martinez, Daniel and Jaime Rodriguez. “Progression through Basic Skills English, Math, and Reading, , Moreno Valley, College, Norco College, and Riverside City College.” Available at The data, and some of the slides, on the accelerated programs at Chabot and Las Positas Colleges are taken from Hern, Katie and Myra Snell. “Bring Accelerated English and Math to your Campus,” a Powerpoint, available at A key resource for acceleration resources in California is the California Acceleration Project page of the California Community Colleges’ Success Network site. The page has a number of useful links, some of which influenced the development of the Eng 80 COR. Available at