TO: GENERAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE FROM: ASSSESSMENT COMMITTEE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. RE: Response to GEC report on Quadrennial Review

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1 TO: GENERAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE FROM: ASSSESSMENT COMMITTEE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY RE: Response to GEC report on Quadrennial Review DATE: April 3, 2015 The Department of History thanks the General Education Committee for its diligent and thoughtful review of our general education courses. In response to the GEC review, the Department, led by our Assessment Committee, has decided to retain our current assessment instrument the document-based question (DBQ) but with substantial revisions. The Department appreciates the GEC s clarification of the learning outcome and a way in which the department can connect the outcome more closely with the discipline of history. In revising the DBQ and our assessment, the Assessment Committee will direct students to focus on historical cause and effect and historically significant concepts. 1. The Assessment Committee is rewriting the question for each DBQ to specifically reflect the outcome to be assessed. The new question structure will encourage analysis of relational propositions via cause & effect. The DBQ for HIST 2763: US History to 1876 is included as an example. 2. The Assessment Committee is in the process of completely changing the sets of documents for the DBQ in HIST 1013: World Civilization to 1660; HIST 2763: US History to 1876; HIST 2773: US History since A new DBQ for HIST 1013: World Civilization to 1660 will require more time to consult with the colleagues who teach that course in order to find a suitable document (or documents). 4. DBQ for HIST 1023: World Civilization since 1660 will continue to use the current question on environmental historical changes, but some of the documents will be changed to reflect more recent scholarship. 5. The Assessment Committee is selecting documents that chronologically correspond to the last quarter of the semester so the assignment will reflect student proficiency for the full term. This is a change from the current DBQs, which corresponded to the first half or middle of the term. DBQs for all four courses will be ready for implementation by Fall 2015.

2 6. The Assessment Committee has created a new rubric that more precisely evaluates the learning outcome (Analyze events in terms of the concepts and relational propositions generated by the social science tradition). Students will be asked to focus particularly on cause and effect, linking the outcome more specifically to the discipline of History. A copy of the rubric is included. 7. Faculty will be given flexibility on making the DBQ an in class or out of class assignment and the length of time students will have to complete the DBQ. The Assessment Committee will gather the data and analyze comparing the differences in scores. The committee will also compare courses taught in the classroom with those taught on line. 8. Faculty have factored the DBQ into students final grades. They will be encouraged to continue that.

3 HISTORY DEPARTMENT GEN ED DBQ ASSESSMENT RUBRIC Thesis (0-1 point) Context (0-1 point) Outside Evidence (0-1 point) Document Analysis (0-3 points) 3 points 2 points 1 point 0 points Thesis addresses all Thesis does not parts of the prompt address all parts of the and accurately prompt, re-states the identifies causal prompt, or relationships and inaccurately identifies conceptual terms that causal relationships will be explained in the and conceptual terms essay that will be explained in the essay Essay accurately and sufficiently analyzes all documents to support the thesis AND explains all of the following for all documents: - Audience - Purpose - Point of View Essay adequately analyzes all of the documents to support the thesis AND explains at least one of the following for each document: - Audience - Purpose - Point of View Essay accurately and explicitly contextualizes the argument within its larger historical context and conceptual framework Essay contains substantial and historically accurate outside evidence to support or prove thesis Essay does not analyze all documents provided and/or offers incomplete or inaccurate analysis of some of the documents and/or document analysis does not support the thesis Essay provides limited or inaccurate larger historical context, or essay lacks broader contextualization of argument and conceptual framework altogether Essays lacks outside evidence entirely or the outside evidence provided is inaccurate or irrelevant to support the thesis Essay lacks document analysis entirely or simply paraphrases the documents used Synthesis (0-1 point) Response synthesizes the argument, evidence, analysis of documents, and context into a coherent and persuasive essay by accomplishing ONE or more of the following as relevant to the DBQ prompt. Student can get up to one point for demonstrating 1 or more of the following skills 1. Appropriately extends or modifies the causal relationships and/or conceptual terms stated thesis (ex: provides a counter-argument) AND/OR 2. Effectively integrates contradictory evidence from documents in crafting a coherent argument AND/OR 3. Appropriately connects the prompt and/or thesis to other historical periods, geographical areas, contexts, or conceptual frameworks (student understands the bigger picture)

4 GRADE SCALE DBQ SCORE LETTER GRADE 7 A 6 B 5 C 4 D 3 F 2 F 1 F

5 HISTORY 2763 (U.S. to 1876) Document-Based Assignment Directions: The following question requires that you construct a coherent essay that integrates your interpretation of Documents A and B and your knowledge of the period referred to in the question. High scores will be earned only by essays that both cite key pieces of evidence from the documents and draw on outside knowledge of the period. Question: Discuss the primary cause of the sectional crisis that led to a rebellion by most of the slaveholding states in the Union. Document A June 16, 1858, Illinois Republican Party Convention. Abraham Lincoln began his campaign for the U.S. Senate with the following address: Mr. PRESIDENT and Gentlemen of the Convention. If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed. A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved---i do not expect the house to fall---but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new---north as well as South. Document B A Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union... Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical

6 sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin... That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove. The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution,... It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction. It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion. It tramples the original equality of the South under foot. It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain. It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst. It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists... Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.