Some Results of Using Culture-referenced Prompts for Pre and Post-test Writing Examinations at an HBCU

Abstract

Some Results of Using Culture-referenced Prompts for Pre and Post-test Writing Examinations at an HBCU Nathaniel Norment Jr. (bio) Culture is the totality of [Black] people's thought and practice by which they celebrate themselves, recreate themselves, and introduce themselves to history, and [to] humanity. —Maulana Karenga A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots. —Marcus Garvey [O]ne could argue that the kind and degree of writing ability assessed by a specific prompt may be determined by the nature of that prompt, particularly by its cognitive, linguistic, and rhetorical demands and by the nature of the social [cultural] context in which the prompt places the writer. —Karen L. Greenberg What you learn at an HBCU is you do not have to fit into somebody's limited perspective on what it means to be young, gifted, and [B]lack. —Kamala Harris HBCUs are unique sites of inquiry and poised to be at the forefront of conversations about race and writing because of our institutional contexts and the student populations with whom we work each day. —Karen Keaton Jackson, Hope Jackson, and Dawn N. Hicks Tafari [End Page 252] Introduction A recent book edited by Staci M. Perryman-Clark and Collin Lamont Craig, Black Perspectives in Writing Program Administration: From the Margins to the Center, focuses on Black students, Black faculty, Black Writing Program Administrators, and Black experiences in higher education. They present a framework that incorporates three principles that represent a Black perspective in Writing Program Administration (WPA) work: (1) African-centered pedagogical materials are placed at the center of the curriculum; (2) programmatic assessment measures are designed with Black student success in mind; and (3) successful writing programs understand that they can implement African-centered pedagogy and antiracist writing assessment practices and still support all students. Several chapters in the book point to the advantages of centering the teaching of writing to African American students from an African-centered point of view. Writing curricula must provide African American students with content that facilitates critical thinking skills and enhance their written language skills in all types of writing. Furthermore, the goal of assessing African American students should be to accurately test the stylistic devices, syntactic, knowledge, and organizational structures that may be linguistically and culturally specific for African American students. For example, in 1969, I made site visits to Clark Atlanta, Fisk, Howard, and Morehouse to review their writing curricula and learn their strategies and pedagogy for teaching writing to Black students. That same year, I was hired by Mina Shaughnessy to teach English in the Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) Program at The City College of New York (CCNY). Thereafter, the CCNY's SEEK English Program developed curricula that incorporated readings such as poetry from the likes of Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, and Amiri Baraka; Richard Wright's Black Boy, Zora Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God; James Baldwin's Go Tell It On the Mountain. Back then, many faculty members at PWIs did not have the experience of teaching writing to Black students. From my own experiences working at Morehouse, however, I believe that HBCUs had, and continue to have, a long-established history of improving the writing skills of Black students. Many colleges and universities have some system to assess and place their students into writing courses at the entry level. Others have instituted Direct Self Placement (DSP), which permits students to select the course they think they need to improve their writing. Placement and pre-tests measure students' readiness for writing instruction within a composition curricular sequence. Writing-placement systems are established to protect the academic level of the course, support retention into the second year, and maintain and enrich faculty conversation about writing instruction. In 2018, all first-time freshmen and transfer students [End Page 253] at Morehouse College took an English placement or pre-test examination. Based on their test results, students are placed into English 101 and English 102, a two-semester freshman composition writing sequence. Writing and analytical skills are enhanced through extensive work in expository, argumentative, and documented essays. Course activities require...