WPE Testing Process

1. WPE Testing Process • When is the next WPE? • The next portfolio is due October 17. Registration opens on September 15. You should bookmark www.umb.edu/wpe as that is where you can find the WPE schedule for the academic year. • Are there make-up days for the WPE if I miss it? • No. If you miss the WPE you have to wait until the next one. • If I take a timed exam and don’t pass can I switch to portfolio (or vice-versa)? • Yes. • Do I have to turn in a portfolio in person? • If you can’t make it to campus, a friend, or a family member can turn in your portfolio for you. If you are an online student who lives at a distance, or if you are traveling at the time of the WPE, contact us in advance by email (writing.proficiency@umb.edu) and we will arrange for you to submit your portfolio electronically.

2. Testing Process Continued • Can I submit a portfolio by mail, email or by fax? • No, you can’t. If for some reason you can’t submit your portfolio in person on the due day, please contact the WPE office in advance, and they will arrange for you to submit it electronically. • Do I have to be an active student to do the WPE? • No, you don’t have to be active. However, if your student email address has been suspended, a member of the staff will have to register you over the phone, after which you should write to the WPE office so they can send the testing materials to your current email address. • How do I get the readings? • Immediately after you have registered, the system will send to your student email address a confirmation that you are registered. In that message will be a link to the reading set. If you did not receive that confirmation message, write to (writing.proficiency@umb.edu) and a member of the WPE staff will send you the reading.

3. Testing Process Continued • How do I get the writing prompt/question? • For portfolios, the writing prompt is on the first page of the reading set. For timed exams, you will not get the writing prompt until you show up to do the exam. • How do I register for the WPE? • Go to www.umb.edu/wpe during the registration period. You cannot register outside of the registration period. (For instance, you will not be able to register for the January WPE until December 1.)

4. Portfolio Process • Can I turn a portfolio in early or late? • Portfolios must be submitted on the due date only. Sometimes the WPE offiice will allow you to turn in a portfolio early with written permission. You can get this permission by writing to the department email address, writing.proficiency@umb.edu. • Can I use two papers from one class? • No, you can’t. You need to make an appointment with the director to get this permission. • How do I make a tutoring appointment? • Appointments are scheduled by telephone only. Tutoring is mostly available to students who have made at least two unsuccessful attempts at the WPE, although spots may open up.

5. Portfolio Process Continued • My professor didn’t respond when I asked for a certification. • Unfortunately, the WPE office can’t help you directly with this problem. Try visiting the professor in person during publicized office hours. If the professor no longer works at UMB, you can ask the department chair to sign the form (so long as you have the original graded paper or grade comments that were sent to you electronically). • I’m a new transfer student who is doing a portfolio. • If you have been at UMB for two semesters or less, you only need 10 pages of course papers rather than 15 pages. “New transfer student” means that this is your first semester at UMB.

6. Portfolio Process Continued • What does the portfolio consist of? • A new 5-page essay answering the WPE reading set question, and at least 15 pages You must turn in at least 15 pages of supporting course papers. • What is the criteria for supporting papers? • You must submit a minimum of two papers from two courses.  (The only exceptions are NU 212, NU 360, and CRW 282/283--students may submit two papers from those courses.) • Each paper must be a typed, graded paper written for a course taught at UMass Boston (for example, English 102, First Year Seminar, or Intermediate Seminar). • At least one of the papers must come from a course at the 200-level or higher (for example, an Intermediate Seminar).

7. Portfolio Process Continued • All course papers must be analytical essays written in English and must demonstrate the criteria outlined in The Elements of Writing Proficiency. • Two or three of the supporting course papers must be based on the analysis of two or more readings. Only one paper may be based on the analysis of one reading or on the analysis of information gathered through observation, interview, or experimentation. • Each paper must come from a different course; however, papers from different courses taught by the same professor are allowed.

8. Portfolio Process Continued • The supporting papers must total 15 full pages. No single paper can be less than three full pages, and one paper must be at least five full pages. (Papers must be double-spaced, 1" margins, maximum of 12-point type, on 8 1/2" by 11" paper). • Each paper must be certified as the original graded paper.   You can download the Certification Form on the WPE website, or pick up copies in the office of Undergraduate Studies/WPE. • Each original graded paper must have attached to it a completed certification form signed by the instructor who graded it. If you do not have an original graded paper, but you have an electronic copy of the original paper, you may print out a copy of the paper and use it if and only if the professor to whom the paper was submitted signs the certification form and writes “I remember that this is the paper submitted for the course” and writes the original grade.

9. Timed Exam Process • How do I prepare for a timed exam? • Read and annotate your copy of the reading set several times (you can bring your copy into the exam with you). Attend the workshop or view the video-recording of the workshop. Write yourself a practice question and practice writing an essay about the readings. Additional advice about preparing for a timed exam can be found on the WPE website (umb.edu/wpe) and will be given during the scheduled workshop. • Can I get tutoring for a timed exam? • No. Tutoring is only offered to students who are preparing a portfolio.

10. WPE Grading Process • English is not my first language/not my best subject. Will I be graded on spelling and grammar? • No, the WPE is not a spelling/grammar exam. • What am I being graded on then? • The Elements of Proficiency are the criteria that faculty readers use to evaluate your proficiency in critical reading, thinking, and writing. The Elements are directly related to particular aims of the General Education program (Gen. Ed.). The Gen. Ed. program is based on the premise that frequent consideration of complex problems helps you to develop the specific capabilities most often used in critical reading, writing, and thinking.

11. Elements of Writing Proficiency • Am I expected to be an expert in all the Elements of Proficiency? • You are not expected to have mastered all of the capabilities completely; rather, you are expected to “demonstrate intermediate proficiency in writing.” This means that your writing will not be graded as a “retake” merely because it contains a few spelling or punctuation errors. However, it is unlikely that you will pass the exam without demonstrating an intermediate mastery of the higher order thinking criteria outlined in the Elements of Writing Proficiency. • Well, what are the elements? • The elements are separated into three categories: 1) critical thinking, 2) critical reading, and 3)effective writing. Each of these categories is assigned a percentage weight in evaluating your essay.

12. Critical Thinking, Effective Use of Your Own Ideas: Evaluation Area 1 = 40% of grade • Develop a sustained clear position, often by using a thesis, central idea, or hypothesis about the issue under consideration. • The question will instruct you how to focus on the issue; you should hold that focus throughout the whole paper. Generally, your paper should go into depth and full detail about a single topic. Deep focus allows you to inquire into a particular issue. • Full detail and depth might mean you do these types of things: examine evidence closely; assess the source and quality of evidence; distinguish between facts and opinions; and/or, acknowledge, analyze, and evaluate value judgments in the readings and in your own position.

13. Critical Thinking Continued • Synthesize source materials to support your position. • Develop your position with clear references to specific arguments in the reading set. • Quote, frame, and analyze passages with the clear purpose of supporting your position. • To create a context for your position, you need to summarize and attribute any ideas that you use from the readings. Give credit where it is due!

14. Critical Thinking Continued • Organize your argument in a clear and appropriate sequence of support for the thesis, central idea or hypothesis. Sustain your position throughout the whole paper by ordering it with a clear organizing principle. • Each paragraph contains one idea, supported and developed fully, that supports your thesis; paragraphs are “linked” in a chain of reasoning that develops your argument persuasively. • In other words, your role as a writer is to identify a connection like these that run through the reading set. Then, use that connection to organize your position by developing a thesis, hypothesis, or central idea about the connection throughout your essay.

15. Critical Reading, Effective Use of Multiple Sources: Evaluation Area 2 = 40% of grade • Identify, Summarize, and Define key terms or categories of classification in the reading set. • Try to identify the key terms and definitions in the readings; then, establish what the readings have in common, or equally important, which definitions are contested. • Summaries are generalizations that condense complex ideas, sometimes by noting structures of classification, stages in a process, or abstract connections that organize an argument. You may identify a focus or possibly supporting evidence for your thesis by identifying, summarizing and defining the key terms in the readings.

16. Critical Reading Continued • Analyze and Evaluate the problem/question at issue (and/or the sources' arguments) in the reading set. Summarizing and defining the ideas in the readings starts the process of taking an idea apart so you can analyze and evaluate it. • Analysis often occurs in the act of summary when you identify the key elements of an argument; however, analysis goes further than just noting the key elements. • Evaluation acknowledges various perspectives, and explains your position with a reasoned presentation of your evidence. Evaluation is the weighing of complex issues in terms of the strengths and weakness of the various perspectives.

17. Critical Thinking Continued • Synthesize and assess the key assumptions, concepts, themes, or ideas in the reading set. Your paper should pull together the various assumptions, ideas and issues in the readings and assesses them. • Then, it should synthesize the ideas so that they are connected to your position. The processes of synthesis often occurs as the continuation of analysis and evaluation; if analysis is the process of taking an idea apart to see and understand its structure, synthesis is often the process of putting an idea back in to a whole to establish its connection to your position.

18. Elements of Writing, Effective Use of Writing Skills: Evaluation Area 3 = 20% of grade • Organize paragraphs, both globally and locally. • Global: Each paragraph signals a new idea; and, it signals how that new idea is clearly related to the paragraphs that come before and after it. Check paragraph length, unity, and order. • Local: Focus on one idea per paragraph; each sentence in the paragraph connects clearly to the meaning of other sentences. • • Sentences should express your meaning clearly. Avoid these things: using clichés; using common place knowledge; using sentences that are underdeveloped or overdeveloped. Organize sentences to make your meaning clear and understandable to the readers. Check for wordiness, spelling, word choice, and mechanics.

19. Important WPE Contacts • Harry Makrinos, Director of Writing Assessment. Email: Harry.Makrinos@umb.edu • Laurie Marks, Assistant Director of Writing Assessment. Email: Laurie.Marks@umb.edu • Department Email:Writing.Proficiency@umb.edu. Ms. Marks checks this address regularly – it is often best to try this address first before emailing people directly. • Department location: CC 1st floor, Room 1300. • Department phone: 617-287-6330.