In keeping with the accreditation requirements of NCATE/NCTE (the accrediting agency for the
English secondary education program), the English Dept. must assess the progress of all
students pursuing a B. A. in English with certification in Secondary Education. We must do this
in order to verify that our courses are enabling these students to meet the prescribed
NCATE/NCTE standards in English Language Arts (ELA) competencies. If you are one of
these students, you must identify yourself as such to me as soon as possible so
that I can include you in the assessment process. You should understand that it is the
program that is being assessed, not you as individual students. A critical part of the program
involves helping candidates to develop effective assessment strategies for their own use once
they themselves become instructors. All students in this category must prepare an
electronic Secondary Education Program Assessment Portfolio (SEPAP) of these
assessment assignments, both as part of their individual portfolios and as part of
the program review. To this end, all assignments related to this assessment must
be submitted in electronic format for storage in my own SEPAP and eventual
submission to the program reviewers.

Obviously the essays you write for this class will contribute to some of the Secondary Education
Rubrics, especially those listed under general rubric 3.0, Candidate Knowledge; thus, along with
the hard copy of your essays that you submit for grading, you must also submit an electronic
copy for your SEPAP. More explicitly pedagogical assessment assignments will be included as
part of your weekly journals. Secondary Education students have the following options for this
assignment. During the course of the semester Secondary Education students must have
addressed all of the options at least once.

1. Critique some aspect of this course's classroom pedagogy; these aspects may
   include, for example, the overall syllabus, the individual readings, the handling of
   class discussion, the written assignments or the manner of responding to the
   written assignments; or,
2. Describe how you might handle in your own secondary education pedagogy the
   readings, written assignments, etc. involved in this course; or,
3. Choose a film about an English teacher and discuss the presentation of the teacher or
   the profession. Consider what techniques the teacher uses, his or her interaction
   with the class or general effectiveness, the cultural context of the class, etc., as
   well as any bias imposed by the medium, director or writer; or
4. Choose a film or website about the course subject matter, and assess it in relation to
   our class, or to a class you might teach in secondary school. Do the issues
   addressed seem consistent with those presented in class? Do these materials
   contribute either to the way our course is being taught or to how you might
   teach a similar class in secondary schools? How?

You should submit these journals to the course listserve as you would ordinarily, but you must
also email these journals to me personally in attachments as either Word or RTF documents, so
that I may file and submit them as part of the English Departmentıs SEPAP. You should also
retain an electronic copy of these journals for your own SEPAP.