Posted on by Bethany Van Scooter

Student Requirements, Placement and Exemption

Dan Royer and Roger Gilles begin their chapter about what placement is by defining it as the following: “placement is the effort to get new students in the most appropriate beginning composition course… through placement we are trying to set our students up for success in our program” (Malenczyk 23). I didn’t think this would be a difficult concept to discuss, but the more I spoke with my WPA, the more confused I became. According to Lacey, American University does “[have] a placement process per se” (2019) for their first year writing program, but there are placement guidelines in place.

First off, no one is exempt from first year writing. I was pleased to hear this as schools are too often try to ease students out of college by exempting them from valuable classes like first year writing. Second, because a series of two courses (fall and spring) are required, students, even if they have credits for a section from AP, IB, or Dual-Enrollment programs, will still be required to take first year writing in some capacity.

According to the university credit guidelines:

8.1.3. “Students may not use Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), CLEP subject examinations, or other American University-approved exam credits to satisfy university-wide requirements. Exam credit may be used to determine which Written Communication and Information Literacy I and Quantitative Literacy I course(s) the student must complete.”

Additionally, there was a writing requirement that said students had to take first year writing within the first 30 credit hours at AU and if they didn’t, they would be barred from registration until they met that requirement. (8.12.2 and 8.12.2.a). Finally, one of the most commonly cited rules are as follows from the Academic Guidelines:

8.12.5. Incoming freshmen or transfer students may satisfy the College Writing requirement in one of the following ways:

8.12.5.a. Earning a grade of “C” or better in WRTG-100 and WRTG-101, or in WRTG-102 and WRTG-103;

8.12.5.b. Scoring 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Test or scoring 5 or higher on the Higher Level International Baccalaureate Examination, and also earning a grade of “C” or better in WRTG-106;

8.12.5.c. Presenting 6 credit hours of articulated composition credit from another regionally accredited two or four year institution, or presenting 3 credit hours of coursework articulated as composition credit from another regionally accredited two or four year institution and completing WRTG-101 or WRTG-103 with a grade of “C” or better.

I copied and pasted so much of this information because while it may seem cut-and-dry, placement and student requirements rarely are as simple as they seem. For AU, there was a bit of a miscommunication with my WPA about what placement meant, but after reading through these requirements, I understood a bit of the confusion. So let’s break it down by demographic of writers.

“Traditional” Student

All students must fulfill the W1 requirement. There are three routes for fulfilling this requirement:

  • “Take the WRTG 100/101 sequence (this applies to almost every student, including international students).
  • Take WRTG 106 (students who have the required AP/IB credits).
  • Bring in transfer credits for courses articulated to our WRTG 100/101.” (Wootton, personal communication, 2020)

According to Lacey, “[Traditional] students take WRTG 100 and 101” as a sequence, meaning “students take both, in order, not one or the other” and these are courses designed for native-English-speaking students.” (personal communication, 2020). This is usually WRTG 100 in the Fall and then 101 in the Spring.

The placement from here will differ based on the AP/IB credits they come in with. If they have a score on the AP Language and Composition test of at least a 4 (see above 8.12.5.b.), they they are put into the FYW course WRTG 106. When I was a bit confused about the phrase “there’s no placement or decision,” Lacey explained: 

“About 12 or so years ago, students could “test out” of the first-year writing requirement with AP/IB credit. However, people across the university felt that they were under-prepared for the writing in their other classes. So it was decided that students could no longer test out of the requirement. However, we wanted to give some recognition for the AP/IB work (and our admissions office wanted that, too, because students sometimes will base their college choice in part on who accepts their AP/IB credits), so we decided to create WRTG 106, which fulfills the W1 requirement in one semester, not two.”

This was

ELL Students (IAP bridge program)

For ELL students, there is a program called IAP, mentioned in a previous blog post. For those students coming through this bridge program, they take WRTG 100 specialized for IAP students (generally taught by TESOL-certified instructors)

According to Lacey, “Those students also take WRTG 100 and 101, but their WRTG 100 is restricted to IAP students, and then they take 101 with everyone else.  Their WRTG 100 has the same learning outcomes and similar assignment sequences and readings as the non-restricted 100s; the only difference is that they get a little more attention to and support for L2 writers” (personal communication, 2020).

Transfer &  Dual-Enrollment Credits

While they do not have any high school students dual-enrolled in the university (which was a blessing in my mind for those instructors simply because that system sounds ethically concerning), they do deal with dual-enrollment credits from other colleges in the area that students use as transfer credits. CWPA illustrates the questionable value (sometimes) in dual enrollment, reiterating that FYW “has frequently become a course in which students learn to read and to produce the kinds of discourse used in university disciplines” and that stakeholders (most likely parents debating putting their parents in this program) should “evaluat[e] whether new students should enroll in a given institution’s FYW course … [by] investigat[ing] the unique aims, curricular design, and staffing of the writing program.”

Lacey reviews the credits and the program from which they came, and then she decides whether or not those credits count for WRTG 100. She notes that transfer/dual-enrollment credit “[students] don’t go into 106; that’s only for students with AP or IB credit.  Depending on what they transfer in, a student with dual-enrollment credit likely will take WRTG 101.” This could become an issue for these students since, as Anson points out, “no dual-enrollment program is free” (263). So many stakeholders are risking a lot for their students to get this experience; yet, because these programs are not as rigorous or cover necessary reading and analysis skills that WRTG 100 covers, these dual-enrollment courses could do next to nothing for incoming freshmen.

Works Cited

CWPA Position Statement on Pre-College Credit for Writing

Royer, Dan, and Roger Gilles, “What is Placement?” In Malenczyk, pp. 23-34.

Anson, Chris M. “Absentee Landlords or Owner-Tenants? Formulating Criteria for Dual-Credit Composition Programs. College Credit for Writing in High School: The “Taking Care of” Business. Ed. Kristine Hansen and Christine R. Farris. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. 2010. 245-271

Wootton, Lacey. “WPA Report 5: Student Requirements, Placement and Exemption.” Received by Bethany Van Scooter, February 19 – 28, 2020.