Academic Literacy: A Statement of Competencies Expected of Students Entering California's Public Colleges and Universities

Part I: Academic Literacy: Reading, Writing and Thinking Critically

A. Habits of Mind: Foundational Dispositions Well-Prepared Students Have for Academic Reading, Writing, and Critical Thinking

Competencies for entering students cannot be reduced to a mere listing of skills. True academic competence depends upon a set of perceptions and behaviors acquired while preparing for more advanced academic work. Therefore, a description of abilities necessary for success in college must reflect what college educators recognize as the intellectual and practical dispositions of their successful students.

The inseparable skills of critical reading, writing, listening and thinking depend upon students' ability to postpone judgment and tolerate ambiguity as they honor the dance between passionate assertion and patient inquiry. Academic success depends, too, upon students' exercising the stamina and persistence useful in other areas of their lives. Those who play sports, learn a musical instrument, or master difficult dance routines learn, over time, the value of practice. In much the same way, academically successful students have learned that intellectual endurance in the form of rethinking, rereading and rewriting offers similar rewards.

While education is clearly a collaborative effort, students must ultimately assume considerable responsibility for their own education. Successful students seek assistance when they need it and advocate for their own learning in diverse situations.

College students and faculty do not think in isolation. They think with, around, and against other thinkers in a culture of academic literacy. Consequently, this report also examines some of the habits of mind essential to successful participation in this culture.

What constitutes academic literacy?

The dispositions and habits of mind that enable students to enter the ongoing conversations appropriate to college thinking, reading, writing, and speaking are inter-related and multi-tiered. Students should be aware of the various logical, emotional, and personal appeals used in argument; additionally, they need skills enabling them to define, summarize, detail, explain, evaluate, compare/contrast, and analyze. Students should also have a fundamental understanding of audience, tone, language usage, and rhetorical strategies to navigate appropriately in various disciplines.

Our study informs our conclusions about the complex nature of academic literacy. Competencies in reading, writing, listening, speaking, and in the use of technology that are described in later segments presuppose the intellectual dispositions valued by the community college, CSU, and UC faculty who teach first-year students and participated in our study. They tell us, and our experience confirms, that the following intellectual habits of mind are important for students' success. The percentages noted indicate the portion of faculty who identified the following as "important to very important" or "somewhat to very essential" in their classes and within their academic discipline. College and university students should be able to engage in the following broad intellectual practices:

• exhibit curiosity (80%)
  

• experiment with new ideas (79%)
  

• see other points of view (77%)
  

• challenge their own beliefs (77%)
  

• engage in intellectual discussions (74%)
  

• ask provocative questions (73%)
  

• generate hypotheses (72%)
  

• exhibit respect for other viewpoints (71%)
  

• read with awareness of self and others (68%)

Faculty members also indicated, by the percentages below, that the following
classroom behaviors facilitate students' learning. They noted that students should be able to do the following:

• ask questions for clarification (85%)
  

• be attentive in class (84%)
  

• come to class prepared (82%)
  

• complete assignments on time (79%)
  

• contribute to class discussions (67%)

Successful college and university students also know how to take advantage of what college has to offer, especially when they do not understand an assignment, are confused about teachers' expectations, or need particular guidance. Self-advocacy is, therefore, a valuable practice that emerges from the recognition that education is a partnership.

College and university faculty also expect students to

• respect facts and information in situations where feelings and intuitions often prevail;
  

• be aware that rhetorics of argumentation and interrogation are calibrated to disciplines, purposes, and audiences;
  

• embrace the value of research to explore new ideas through reading and writing;
  

• develop a capacity to work hard and to expect high standards; and
  

• show initiative and develop ownership of their education.

Do entering students reflect such habits of mind?

Generally, college faculty who participated in our study have concerns about the habits of mind of their first year students. Among the narrative comments, we find assertions that students "are more diligent than in the past, but less able to tackle difficult questions, and much less curious"; "students today seem unwilling to engage in the hard work of thinking, analyzing, unless it is directed to their most immediate interests"; students "over-emphasize the skill dimension of the discipline, and ignore the communication dimension," and, regrettably, "they do not know how to seek help and demand attention."
Faculty expect students to have an appetite to experiment with new ideas, challenge their own beliefs, seek other points of view, and contribute to intellectual discussions, all of which demand increasingly astute critical thinking skills.

What is meant by "critical thinking"?

Critical thinking generally refers to a set of cognitive habits and processes. Thus, critical thinkers recursively engage in probative questioning, rigorous analyzing, imaginative synthesizing, and evaluating of ideas. Such thinking ability can be acquired through effort and instruction and is crucial to success in all academic disciplines.

Although the 9-12 California English Language Arts Content Standards call for students to identify, describe, compare/contrast, trace, explain, analyze, interpret and evaluate, often students do not build on these abilities toward higher-order critical thinking skills. Forty percent of our study respondents indicate that their students' "ability to tackle complex, analytical work" has declined over the course of their teaching years, a figure that rises dramatically with faculty's length of service. The responses do not suggest the causes of such perceptions; but whatever those causes might be, educators want to avoid, as one faculty notes, "thought processes [that] seem shallow, like 'sound bites.'" While such sound bites may characterize aspects of the culture at large, they do not characterize the academic culture, which prizes reflective habits of mind regarding critical reading, writing, listening and thinking.

As one respondent puts it, "If [students] can't write well, I don't see evidence that they can think well." Analytical thinking must be taught, and students must be encouraged to apply those analytical abilities to their own endeavors as well as to the work of others. Students whose abilities in critical reading and thinking enable them to grasp an argument in another's text can construct arguments in their own essays. Those who question the text will be more likely to question their own claims. Frequent exposure to a variety of rhetorical strategies in their reading empowers students to experiment with and develop their own rhetorical strategies as writers.

B. The Reading and Writing Connection

No one disputes the connection between reading and writing. We know that good writers are most likely careful readers-and that most academic writing is a response to reading. It follows, then, that faculty expect students to imitate in their own writing the forms and strategies of written expression they encounter in their assigned readings. Students, like the writers whose works they read, should articulate a clear thesis, and should identify, evaluate and use evidence to support or challenge that thesis while being attentive to diction, syntax, and organization. Study respondents expect students to recognize that writing is a form of thinking, and that sustaining arguments and synthesizing ideas will be the mainstay of their college writing experiences.

The 1996 CERT Standards stipulate that students should read "thoughtfully and critically and produce evidence that makes and supports interpretations, makes connections . . . and evaluate writing strategies and elements of writing." Our study supports the need for these higher-level reading skills; faculty expect academic rigor of entering students and their ability to do the following:

• use the title of the article/essay/text as an indication of what will come
  

• predict the intention of the author from extratextual cues
  

• understand "rules" of various genres
  

• retain versatility in reading various forms of organization both essay and paragraph
  

• read texts of complexity without instruction and guidance
  

• decipher the meaning of vocabulary from the context
  

• have strategies for reading convoluted sentences
  

• summarize information
  

• understand separate ideas and then be able to see how these ideas form a whole
  

• relate prior knowledge and experience to new information
  

• make connections to related topics or information
  

• synthesize information in discussion and written assignments
  

• argue with the text
  

• determine major and subordinate ideas in passages
  

• identify key examples that attempt to prove the thesis
  

• anticipate the direction of the argument or narrative
  

• reread (either parts or whole) for clarity
  

• identify appeals made to the readers' emotion [pathos] and logic [logos], and on the basis of the author's self-presentation [ethos]
  

• retain information while searching for answers to self-generated questions
  

• withhold judgment
  

• have patience

From the faculty's perspective, too many students appear daunted by those challenges, particularly in tasks requiring skills in both reading and writing.
Of particular interest are these statistics: according to faculty respondents, only
49% of students are prepared to give brief summaries of readings;
36% of the students are prepared to synthesize information from several sources; and less than
33% of the students are prepared to analyze information or arguments based on their reading.

Eventually, students who are well prepared in high school will come to understand the reading/writing connection and realize that their ideas will be shaped by texts. They will see that their own writing will influence others: texts can move audiences to act or to change a belief. In short, successful students understand that reading and writing are the lifeblood of educated people.

Finally, college faculty report that student reading and writing are behaviors, and that, as such, they are interpreted as evidence of attitudes regarding learning. This important information suggests that even an instance of inadvertent plagiarism, a failure to consider a reader's needs, inclusion of grammar errors or misspellings, or a failure to read an assignment with care all influence faculty judgment about students' academic potential.

1. Reading Competencies
Reading is repeatedly identified as a most significant factor in the success of students in their college classes. Three fundamental reading competencies prove essential:

• reading for literal comprehension and retention;
  

• reading for depth of understanding; and
  

• reading for analysis, and interaction with the text.

Do entering students have these foundational skills in reading?

Evidence demonstrates that entering freshmen experience reading difficulties. Since 1995, for example, increasing numbers of students who take the CSU English Placement Test are unable to read at the threshold level. These findings are not isolated. Significantly, 83% of the surveyed faculty say that the lack of analytical reading skills contributes to students' lack of success in a course. As the graph below indicates, when higher education faculty were asked to consider what factors might contribute to students' lack of success, faculty in all three segments indicated that the absence of analytical skills in reading was a definite factor in their lack of success.

Is the absence of this ability a factor in students' lack of course success?

What kinds of reading assignments can entering students expect?
Students can expect varied reading assignments: news articles, essays, book-length works, research articles, and textbooks. Faculty respondents concur with the CERT standards which, unlike the California Language Arts Standards, call for students' comprehension of "academic and workplace texts."

Certainly students should arrive at college with a clear understanding of our literary heritage manifested in fiction and poetry, as well as in non-fiction. The chart of competencies in Part II assumes a familiarity with literature and does not specify additional expectations beyond those articulated in other standards and asked of graduating high school students. An appreciation of drama, fiction, and poetry teaches empathy, develops imaginative/creative power, and makes evident the power of "the word." Many students with a solid background in literature and writing slip easily into the world of college reading and writing demands, and they exhibit a key quality- flexibility. On the other hand, when students fail to learn the very different reading strategies necessary for comprehending non-fiction (essays), they may have difficulty with college reading, and, we might argue, may fail to develop life-long interests in reading. College faculty assign a variety of texts, and they assume that students have the reading abilities to complete these assignments.

The following chart indicates the kinds of reading skills college and university faculty indicate are important for academic success. Note particularly the importance of analytical reading and use of research.

Why do students have difficulty with reading tasks assigned in college?

Presumably, most high-school faculty assign reading in conjunction with their courses. Those assignments assume that students (especially 11th and 12th-grade college-bound students) are skillful, inquisitive readers. The California English Language Arts Content Standards, while calling for students to read "two million words annually," expect that reading to occur independently, outside students' classwork, as they work "on their own." The CERT standards, on the other hand, set higher standards, suggesting that students should read at least "the equivalent of 25 books each year, in a variety of genres, across the entire school curriculum." These latter standards are consistent with the preparation our respondents assume.

Of course, when students begin academic studies in college, they face greater, more challenging reading. College faculty assign staggering reading loads, requiring a certain level of vocabulary and an ability to read and comprehend quickly. Their assumptions about the reading proficiency of entering students are often contrary to fact, and faculty presume that students have mastered needed reading techniques. Few college and university teachers teach reading or explicit reading strategies, and they seldom alter the assigned reading to respond to students' abilities. Students who find themselves with inadequate reading skills must seek out campus resources to overcome these potential barriers to academic and workplace success.

Why are these students underprepared on entry?

The following conditions also may contribute to students' underpreparation:
(1) Reading is not well supported in the culture. We live in an age of image where little is left to the imagination. Reading, however, is a process that requires time and reflection, and that stimulates imagination, analysis, and inquiry.
(2) Reading is not formally taught after a certain point in students' education. We all assume that merely assigning more reading is the key to students' improvement. Thus, many of the higher-order reading skills (evaluation, synthesis and analysis, discerning an author's purpose, assessing the quality of an argument; relating an argument to issues beyond the author's scope, comparing an author's claim to others' claims and to one's experience) are presumed to have been taught and reinforced frequently in K-12. In fact, these sophisticated skills may never have formally been introduced at an age-appropriate juncture nor received due attention during students' secondary years and across the disciplines.
(3) Too frequently, the teaching of reading, thinking, and writing falls solely on the high-school English teacher, while other content area teachers focus on the transfer of information rather than teaching strategies of reading, thinking and writing in a particular discipline.

2. Writing Competencies

Teaching writing as a process (a pedagogy relatively new to the field when the last Competency Statement was published in 1982) has now become fully integrated into the teaching of composition. Although composition instruction once focused primarily on the products that students generated and emphasized sentence-level correctness, instruction now guides students through the composing process and emphasizes the connection between writing and thinking. As a result, today's students are more likely to be taught the importance of audience and purpose in shaping a piece of writing, strategies for generating ideas during pre-writing, and techniques for revising and editing as essential parts of the composing process. Faculty across the disciplines who responded to our questionnaire indicated awareness of two fundamental characteristics of academic writing:

(1) Writing as a recursive process:
Faculty recognize that writing is a complex process that involves a series of activities: invention (pre-writing or planning), drafting, revision, and editing. However, these activities are recursive, not linear. That is, writers return to these activities repeatedly during composing rather than move through them in discrete stages. Consequently, faculty expect students to reexamine their thesis, to consider and reconsider additional points or arguments, and to reshape and reconstruct as they compose. Such recursive work, however, usually occurs outside of class, and faculty expect students to submit carefully revised and edited work. Students who, by the end of their secondary schooling, have internalized this process of composing will be well prepared for college writing assignments.

(2) Writing as a way of learning:
Faculty frequently express their understanding that writing is part of the learning process itself. They observe that "writing about the subject matter greatly enhances the students' understanding," and they "use the students' [written] work as a means to measure their level of understanding the course material." These comments demonstrate that faculty judge students' ability to develop thought and understanding and their ability to express their thinking clearly, accurately, and compellingly through their writing.

Approximately 62% of those in our study teach disciplinary classes in which writing was not the central focus of instruction, while the other 38% teach first-year composition courses that provide instruction in general writing skills useful for a broad range of courses. However, substantial agreement exists among both writing faculty and non-writing faculty in all three segments regarding writing competencies and abilities needed for success. To engage productively in composing as a recursive process, they report that students need to write to discover and learn new ideas, generate ideas for writing by using texts in addition to past experience or observations, revise to improve focus, support, and organization, and edit or proofread to eliminate errors in grammar, mechanics, and spelling.

In writing for university courses, faculty in our study indicated that students will be asked to write papers that require them to do the following:

• critically analyze the ideas or arguments of others;
  

• summarize ideas and/or information contained in a text;
  

• synthesize ideas from several sources; and
  

• report facts or narrate events.

For most of these assignments, students will need to be able to accomplish the following to be effective:

• generate an effective thesis;
  

• develop it convincingly with well-chosen examples, good reasons, and logical arguments; and
  

• structure their writing so that it moves beyond formulaic patterns that discourage critical examination of the topic and issues.

Students must also employ the above composing and rhetorical abilities when they conduct college-level research to develop and support their own opinions and conclusions. In doing so, they need to be able to

• use the library catalog and the Internet to locate relevant sources,
  

• critically assess the authority and value of research materials that have been located, and
  

• correctly document research materials to avoid plagiarism.

In addition, faculty indicate that students must simultaneously exercise control over the language they use. To convey their ideas clearly and effectively, students must
use varied sentence structures, choose appropriate vocabulary for an academic audience, and produce finished, edited papers that follow standard English conventions of grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling and that are relatively free of error.
Underscoring these observations, faculty note the importance of students' facility with the following language conventions:

• using vocabulary appropriate to college-level work and the discipline (88%);
  

• using correct grammar and punctuation (86%);
  

• spelling accurately (75%).

As the data above show, both rhetorical abilities and editorial skills are necessary for college writers to succeed in their assigned writing tasks. These expectations illustrate the complex nature of writing, which requires writers to control both rhetorical strategies and language conventions for a wide variety of writing assignments.

Are entering students well prepared for the rhetorical demands of college writing assignments?

The graph below suggests a mismatch between students' preparation and the abilities needed to complete typical college writing tasks. Composition faculty and disciplinary faculty generally agree that students are best prepared to write personal essays, informal responses, short answer essay questions, and brief summaries of readings.

However, of the tasks students are best prepared to undertake, only short answer responses are frequently assigned. Moreover, only about one-third of the students are sufficiently prepared for the two most frequently assigned writing tasks: analyzing information or arguments and synthesizing information from several sources. One respondent summarized the view held by many: "Even when [students] are essentially very good students, they seem to arrive at my course under-prepared [in writing] by their previous academic work."

Are students well equipped with the rhetorical and editorial abilities expected by college faculty?

College faculty in our study find more than half of their students fail to produce papers relatively free of language errors. Faculty estimated that 48% of their students were able to spell accurately and only 41% were able to use correct grammar and punctuation or employ appropriate vocabulary.

The above responses regarding students' rhetorical and editorial abilities reflect faculty concerns about declining abilities in writing. Although 13% of the faculty in our study believe that overall students' writing has improved since they first began teaching entering students, and 46% believe that students' ability has remained the same, 34% reported that the writing abilities of beginning college students have declined in quality. The percentage reporting a decline in ability jumps to 63% for faculty who have taught sixteen or more years. While among long-time faculty this perceived decline began more than fifteen years ago and is therefore not a relatively recent phenomenon, the perception may also result from a mistaken memory of a "golden age" of students' writing ability. Nonetheless, these editorial and rhetorical abilities remain of concern to most faculty.

What is the role of writing in university and college classes? How much writing should students expect to do?

College faculty assign writing for a variety of purposes: to help students engage critically and thoughtfully with course readings; to help students demonstrate what they understand from readings or lectures; to structure and guide students' inquiry; and to encourage independent thinking. Moreover, writing assignments are designed to give students a voice in class discussions, helping them to prepare for active participation in group conversations.

Typically, ten-week quarter courses will require two short 1000-1500-word essays or one short paper and a somewhat longer research or final paper. Large lecture classes will typically require one or two midterm exams with multiple choice and short essay questions, a final exam with similar format, and often an analytical, research-based essay. Semester length courses (15-18 weeks in length) generally will also require two midterm exams with multiple choice and short essay questions and a final exam with longer essay questions and usually an analytical research based essay. Writing courses assign more essays, typically four in quarter courses and six to eight in semester courses and often include one sustained essay or research paper of 8 or more pages. Depending on the course, students may also be asked to do lab reports or various kinds of informal writing- "quickwrites," response journals, or narratives.

College faculty also assign writing in order to get to know how students think, to invite them into the ongoing intellectual dialogue that characterizes higher education. They look for evidence in papers that students are stretching their minds, representing others' ideas responsibly, and exploring ideas. We could say that writing in college is designed to deepen and extend discourse in the pursuit of knowledge.

What types of writing are students asked to submit?

Because lower division students must usually complete general education requirements (introductory courses in a wide variety of disciplines), the writing tasks vary depending on the course. However, generic tasks underlie disciplinary writing tasks that at first seem diverse. Faculty in our study report that the most frequently assigned writing tasks require students to do the following:

• analyze information or arguments
  

• synthesize information from several sources
  

• provide short answer responses or essays
  

• write to discover and learn new ideas
  

• provide factual descriptions
  

• narrate events or report facts
  

• summarize ideas and/or information contained in a text
  

• critically analyze the ideas or arguments of others
  

• generate research reports
  

• write expository and argumentative essays

Composition faculty in our study assigned all these tasks more frequently than their colleagues in other disciplines and were also more likely to assign brief summaries of readings and argumentative essays. The importance of writing in classes taught by faculty across the disciplines varies widely, with some describing writing as "essential," others as a "small component," and a few as "relatively minor" or nonexistent. In general education classes or those with a disciplinary focus, on average 30% of the final course grade is based on out-of-class writing. Some faculty noted they do not emphasize writing because of the nature of the course (e.g., public speaking or computer programming). In their narrative comments, other faculty reported that students' difficulty in thinking critically and creatively and their generally weak writing skills prevented them from completing writing assignments successfully, especially the more challenging tasks. Nonetheless, even faculty who acknowledged students' difficulties with writing emphasized that students should be able to write clearly and concisely, not only for their success in college, but also for their success in their future professions.

These data indicate that college writing assignments frequently require analysis, synthesis, and, notably, research. Students therefore need to understand what constitutes plagiarism, what is common knowledge, when to use quotations, when to paraphrase, and how to cite works appropriately. Students unprepared for such tasks will be at a disadvantage when they enter college.

Will students receive additional writing instruction once they are enrolled in college or university classes?

The answer is both yes and no. Entering students are required to complete introductory composition courses; however they may well be asked to complete complex writing tasks across the disciplines with little instruction provided. They may be asked to write research papers, expository or persuasive essays, lab reports, summaries, abstracts, reviews, interviews or other demanding assignments. Additionally, most public California universities have established an upper-division writing requirement or exit examination for graduation.

The graph below, which illustrates the writing instruction that students are likely to receive in college, shows that only in their composition courses are students likely to receive instruction that prepares them for typical college writing tasks.

College composition faculty in our survey report an emphasis on teaching students to respond to challenging writing tasks that require critical thinking and hence, writing instructors are most likely to provide instruction in the following areas:

• writing argumentative essays (72%)
  

• analyzing information or arguments (69%)
  

• synthesizing information from several sources (63%)
  

• writing research papers (59%)
  

• evaluating others' work (56%).

By comparison, relatively few faculty teaching general education or courses across the disciplines are likely to provide instructional support in those areas just noted. Only 20-25% of the faculty in non-writing courses indicate that they provide instruction in argument or research. Although somewhat higher percentages report that they would introduce or reinforce instruction in analyzing information or arguments (38%) and synthesizing information from several sources (31%), a substantial majority will not provide such instruction.

Is writing instruction available outside of class?

Most colleges and universities offer a range of support services and resources designed to provide help for students who are having difficulties with their reading and writing assignments. Writing centers, which generally provide specialized instructional workshops and one-to-one tutorials, are a particularly valuable resource for students having difficulty completing their writing assignments, as are reading labs and other tutorial services. However, only between 5-10% of our faculty respondents indicate they refer students to such outside resources for additional help. Students who need help overcoming their lack of preparation, therefore, will generally need to find campus instructional resources on their own and to engage in practices of self-advocacy noted earlier.

C. Listening and Speaking Competencies

When asked to identify abilities related to college success, respondents from all segments identified listening, participation in discussions, and comprehensible speech as important contributors. Full participation in intellectual discussions and debates
depends upon clear speech and use of the vocabulary of the discipline.

The California English Language Arts Content Standards call for specific listening and speaking abilities: students are expected to "formulate adroit judgments about oral communication, deliver focused and coherent presentations . . . and use gestures, tone and vocabulary tailored to the audience and purpose." Additionally, they are expected to "speak with a command of English language conventions." These abilities, when regularly addressed and evaluated in the years before high school graduation, would equip entering college students to perform requisite listening and speaking tasks. Successful students must be able to do the following:

• attend to and understand directions for assignments
  

• listen and simultaneously take notes
  · identify key ideas
  · identify subordinate ideas
  · differentiate between illustrative comments, supporting evidence and evidence which contradicts the thesis
  

• retain information received through listening
  

• fulfill a range of roles in small group discussions
  

• participate in class discussions
  · ask questions for clarification
  · ask clearly framed and articulated questions
  · ask how comments are related to the stream of ideas.

Why are these competencies in listening and speaking important and how are they related to reading and writing?

Listening and speaking skills enable students to be full participants in their own education: (1) much of their college-level work requires them to be active, discerning listeners in lecture and discussion classes and to make critical distinctions between key points and illustrative examples, just as they must do when they read and write; (2) the habits of mind expected of students-their curiosity, their daring, their participation in intellectual discussions-are predicated upon their ability to convey their ideas clearly and to listen and respond to divergent views respectfully; (3) their own self-advocacy requires students to seek clarification, ask questions, request help-tasks similarly dependent upon their ability to comprehend instructions and communicate their academic needs forthrightly; and (4) of greatest significance, their involvement reflects the aims of American public education-to prepare an educated citizenry for our participatory democracy.

All students who enter college without having developed essential, critical listening skills or who have not had ample practice speaking in large and small groups will find themselves disadvantaged. This point will be emphasized in the next discussion about students whose home language is not English.

D. Competencies for Students Whose Home Language is Other than English

California is unique in the nation in the linguistic and cultural diversity of its students. According to the California Department of Education, language minority students comprise nearly 40% of all K-12 students. These students come from homes in which a language other than English is spoken as a primary language and are commonly referred to as second language, or L2, learners of English. (See Appendix C for a discussion of the varieties of L2 learners in California's schools.)

Second language learners are expected to control the same set of competencies for success as other students upon entering postsecondary institutions. Even L2 students who are still taking English as a Second Language (ESL) courses at the postsecondary level must simultaneously meet the reading, writing, listening and speaking demands of college-level courses.

To what extent do our non-native English speaking students meet English competency requirements in colleges and universities?

The dominant perception among our faculty respondents is that many L2 students are not prepared to meet college level academic demands. Sixty-four percent of the respondents noted that ESL students experienced difficulties in reading or writing at the college level. However, some faculty stated that while ESL learners lacked writing competency and struggled with sentence structure, word choice and grammar in writing tasks, native English speaking students often made similar errors.

Some evidence from the study shows that because faculty are concerned that all students be able to succeed, faculty may be adversely altering both the instructional delivery and the kinds and amounts of reading and writing assigned. As one CSU respondent commented: "If I had more confidence that ESL students would get help with their writing, I would include a variety of assignments." This need for additional resources outside the classroom for "ESL students" was noted by other respondents who cited increased numbers of English language learning students needing special assistance.

One UC respondent commented that systemwide "ESL problems are seriously and largely unacknowledged by college authorities." Such perceptions may reflect, in part, the difficulty of differentiating among populations of L2 learners and hence finding either instructional or institutional remedies. College faculty do not generally differentiate between categories of language minority students; "ESL" is faculty shorthand for many types of students regardless of their varying language problems and backgrounds.

Most educators understand that recent immigrant L2 learners need specialized language instruction. However, it is less obvious to those same educators or their administrators that L2 students who have received most, if not all, of their education in California schools may continue to have special, academic literacy needs. College faculty who work closely on literacy development with long-term immigrant and American-born L2 learners (often referred to as the 1.5 generation) recognize that many of these students, too, fall well behind their native English speaking peers in meeting the demands of advanced level academic work. As one study respondent commented: "At my college over 60 percent of our students are first- second- or third- generation ESL students. While third-generation students speak English well, they still tend to have writing problems that were not adequately addressed in California high schools."

What kinds of instruction do L2 students need to meet college/university competency requirements?

Educators at all levels have a responsibility to ensure that minority language students have access to and succeed in higher education, in accordance with California's Master Plan. Special needs of L2 learners require particular attention in K-12 curricula. Programs that provide rigorous work on academic English and ample feedback on language problems will help students to emerge prepared for higher level academic work.

In order to provide appropriate instruction for each individual L2 learner, we must recognize the different subgroups of second language learners, distinguished primarily by such differences as length of residence in the U.S., years of U.S. schooling and English language proficiency, both oral and written. These subgroups have been given many different labels, both in educational documents and the public arena. As a result, educators and the public are often confused as to which students are considered "ESL," one of the most commonly used terms to identify non-native English speakers.

In the California K-12 school system, L2 learners have been designated, based on language assessment, as LEP (Limited-English Proficient) or FEP (Fluent-English Proficient). LEP learners are now usually referred to as ELLs (English Language Learners).

By the time they enter California secondary schools, many L2 students have been designated FEP on the basis of their oral fluency. Considerable evidence suggests, however, that this designation fails to measure learners' proficiency in academic English, which requires dispositions and skills beyond those of conversational fluency. Classification of L2 students as FEP (fluent English proficient) is best determined by assessment of the multiple abilities necessary in academic situations: reading, writing, listening and speaking.

Academic English competence for L2 learners, as well as for native English speakers, involves not only reading and writing but also academic listening and speaking proficiency as described earlier. Current research indicates that achieving academic English proficiency is difficult even for those language minority students who are successful in their high school courses. Consequently, secondary instruction must offer both ELL and FEP learners significant opportunities for practicing academic English. Some of the specialized kinds of instruction that many second language learners need are described in Appendix D.

What is the relationship between ESL instruction and instruction regarded as remedial?

Instruction in academic English for second language learners should be distinguished from remedial instruction, just as courses in foreign language instruction for native English speakers are not considered remedial. With adequate time and intensive focus on language acquisition, second language learners will meet secondary content standards established for all students. L2 learners, their peers, parents, teachers, and administrators should understand that special language instruction is not remedial. Given this awareness, L2 students will be more likely to further develop academic English through ESL work at the college level.

The demands of postsecondary academic reading, writing, listening and speaking tasks are, by nature, considerably more challenging than many of those in secondary schools. Consequently, entering L2 students who have been designated in high school as orally proficient may need additional help to develop advanced level academic abilities. In collaboration with postsecondary educators, teachers and parents of high school minority language students can help L2 students recognize (1) that seeking specialized instruction in academic English is both desirable and necessary; and (2) that additional time may be required to complete requirements essential for success at the baccalaureate level.

E. Technology Competencies and Student Success

According to the Association of American Colleges and Universities,
Technology has . . . transformed the nature of the learning community and the definition of a classroom. It will continue to shift learning from the ability to amass (or remember) facts to the ability to adapt to constantly changing ways of finding information, and then efficiently evaluating its validity, and finally using it in ethical and creative ways. (Greater Expectations, Update Work-in-Progress Statement #2, revised June 2001, iii)

The importance of this shift away from amassing a knowledge base to acquiring techniques to find the knowledge cannot be overstated. Students' success in college has as much to do with their ability to find information as to recall it. The traditional route to finding information and conducting research, either in print forms or experientially, has now extended to technology-based research whose resources increase exponentially. Our study indicates that faculty expect entering students to have mastered basic elements of technology and the computer. The following competencies are considered essential to success in college. Students should be able to

• type
  

• use word-processing software, to cut, paste, and format text, spell-check, and save and move files
  

• navigate e-mail, compose, send, and receive e-mail, and post attachments
  

• employ e-mail etiquette
  

• navigate the Internet and the World Wide Web, recognizing the significance of domains (e.g., com, net, edu, org, gov)
  

• use search engines effectively
  

• evaluate the authenticity of the Website, the credibility of the author, and the validity of material found on the Web
  

• know how to cite Internet sources
  

• know what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it when using the Internet.

Other competencies, while not essential, will enable a student to perform well in college. The following are considered desirable competencies:

• contribute to discussions online;
  

• use visual aids or applications-based visual programs (such as PowerPoint) to present original work or research or support the content of an oral report; and
  

• create and maintain a Website.

What is the role of technology in college and university classrooms?

Study questions concerning educational uses of technology elicited a wide range of responses: some faculty strongly oppose its use, and others strongly favor it. Those in favor feel that information technology-as well as sufficient technical knowledge-is essential to success in college and career, and that its use actually enhances critical thinking, reading, and writing. Those opposed to the classroom use of technology feel that the most important skills for high school students are, simply, critical thinking, reading, and writing. Some CSU campuses and community colleges have now added Information Competency as a graduation requirement. In some instances, that requirement may obligate students to take an additional course; on other campuses, opportunities to demonstrate information competency will be infused throughout the coursework.

What constitutes "information competency"? Is it expected of entering students?

Information competency, as described in Information Competency in the California Community Colleges (Academic Senate of California Community Colleges, 1998), is

the ability to find, evaluate, use, and communicate information in all its various formats. It combines aspects of library literacy, research methods and technological literacy. Information competency includes consideration of the ethical and legal implications of information and requires the application of both critical thinking and communication skills.

This document notes the link between technology's significant contribution to intellectual sharing and discussion and critical reading, writing, and thinking.

The Academic Senate of the California State Universities similarly notes that information competence is the ability to find, evaluate, use, and communicate information in all of its various formats, including the plethora of electronic communications. In other words, information competence is the fusion or integration of library literacy, ethics, critical thinking, and communication skills.

Students need to understand how audience and purpose shape writing, even in as informal a forum as e-mail. In fact, faculty lament the e-mail shorthand and overly casual tone that often characterize students' e-mail exchanges. These informal notes subject students to the same kind of judgments that their in-class work may generate. Seriousness of purpose (or the lack thereof) is taken to reflect an attitude about learning itself. And while many entering students are familiar with some technological elements (notably e-mail and Web browsing), few demonstrate the crucial ability to evaluate on-line resources critically. Students need to form questioning habits when they are reading, and this is especially true of the material found on the Internet. As experts note, students should be able to look for clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance, and fairness when they evaluate sources.

How much use of technology should students expect to encounter?

Many faculty routinely use e-mail and listservs to communicate with their students. They may use electronic sites to post assignments, encourage online discussions, or conduct auxiliary work essential to student success in that course. A growing number also require students to submit drafts or final written assignments online or to avail themselves of online handbooks or resources that complement their textbooks. Most faculty-whether or not they lean away from technology-feel that the Internet is an important, albeit sometimes problematic, source for research. Several respondents expressed concern that students do not have enough experience in evaluating Internet sources, and that Web research increases the possibility of plagiarism. Therefore, instruction in evaluating sources (both print and electronic) and lessons in defining plagiarism and learning how to avoid it are important for college success.

The graph below indicates faculty response to questions about whether they now use or soon intend to use technology in their classes.

Currently, the following percentages of faculty either require or recommend that their students are able to do the following

• use e-mail (67.5%)
  

• use word-processing software (63%)
  

• use a Web browser for research (53.6%)
  

• evaluate Web sources (42.2%)
  

• submit drafts and papers electronically (34.3%)
  

• use electronic handbooks or references (32.9%).

As faculty's familiarity, comfort, and confidence in these resources grow, the following activities will become more central to colleges and universities: joining a class listserv, a threaded discussion, or mailing list; consulting experts by e-mail; presenting material in Web format or media such as PowerPoint; using interactive lab-based software; keeping electronic logs or journals; creating multimedia documents; publishing work on a Website; using "chat rooms"; using video conferencing.

Will students who haven't yet acquired these skills receive instruction?

Few faculty offer instruction in the use of these tools, yet they expect students to know how to use word-processing software, and they believe that students have an advantage in college if they are familiar with how to maneuver their way through e-mail and Web-based research. This advantage is especially apparent in classes in which writing is a recursive process; word-processing software fosters student revision and may encourage students to engage fully in writing as a process, resulting in more frequently revised and polished work for submission.

The California English Language Arts Content Standards assume that graduating students will be able to "deliver multimedia presentations." Though such presentations are not currently an essential competency, university faculty assume that students who enter without this or other technological skills will demonstrate the habits of mind and self-advocacy to further their education. Students are expected to seek out campus learning resources (including workshops or non-credit courses), pursue tutorial assistance, and establish study groups comprised of those with diverse talents. Finally, students who know how to navigate the Net and to evaluate Web sources will have acquired a skill that they will use in most of their courses in college.

F. Academic Literacy Across the Content Areas

All of the elements of academic literacy discussed in this report-reading, writing,