Composition Forum 47, Fall 2021
http://compositionforum.com/issue/47/

The Black Ink Project

Nathaniel Norment, Jr.

Abstract: This program profile describes the development and implementation of The Black Ink Project at Morehouse College. The Black Ink Project is a curricular initiative intended to support the development of writing abilities among the Men of Morehouse and immerse them in the writing process in the tradition of articulating servant leadership for which the institution is known. Their study informs them of the Black Experience in Africa, America, and the Diaspora. Key to the success of The Black Ink Project is the preparation of faculty, equipping them with the knowledge of culturally relevant pedagogy and strategies for teaching and assessing writing across the curriculum and within the disciplines.

“To close the achievement gap, the education of Black male students must provide a foundation of historical [references] and self-identity.” Baruti K. Kafele

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“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” Marcus Garvey

Morehouse College

Morehouse is the world’s only Historically Black College and University (HBCU) for men. It has produced four Rhodes Scholars, several college presidents, a U. S. senator, and leaders in many other fields. According to the National Science Foundation, Morehouse is the nation's top producer of Black males who continue their education and receive doctorates. The National Science Foundation also ranked Morehouse as the No. 1 producer of Black men who receive doctorates in education, life and physical sciences, math and computer sciences, psychology and social sciences, and humanities and the arts. Morehouse currently has more than 19,000 alumni representing more than 40 states and 14 countries. The socioeconomic status of the men is low income, middle-class, and working class. These Black men come from cities and towns across the U.S. and abroad from countries such as Jamaica, Ghana, England, and Nigeria. Their academic majors include art, English, history, music, biology, political science, sociology, business, religion, psychology, mathematics, computer science, and eighteen other academic majors offered at the College.

A Morehouse education begins, in part, with writing. The first writing task for all students entering Morehouse is an assignment that requires them to write an essay that responds to a Culturally Relevant topic. This practice reflects the College’s longstanding commitment to improving the writing abilities of Black males. In the 21st century, this need is more evident than ever before. No matter what field the student chooses, he will use/need writing to think, analyze, investigate, and create during and after his time at the College.

Furthermore, no matter what path or career he chooses after graduation, he will use writing for those purposes and others: to propose, to investigate, to analyze, and to represent himself and his work. The mastery of verbal and written communication skills has contributed to the success of Morehouse Men over time—many of whom have distinguished themselves as great leaders in considerable measure. They have been great communicators—such as Howard Thurman, Lerone Bennett, Jr., Maynard Jackson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Julian Bond, Mordecai Johnson, Spike Lee, Raphael Warnock, and many others.

Developing the Morehouse Quality Enhancement Plan: The Black Ink Project

Focus groups and working sessions with representatives from all constituencies of the College held during the 2014-2015 academic year were essential referents in developing the five guiding principles of the Morehouse Strategic Plan, Towards Capital and Character Preeminence (www.morehouse.edu/strategicplan). From that process, Principle Two emerged as most relevant to the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP){1} development process. It asserts that “today’s rapidly shifting higher education landscape demands that we must break from existing paradigms …. This means encouraging creativity in students, faculty, and staff, ensuring opportunities to be trained on new tools, allowing ideas to flow from anyone at any level, and being willing to offer new courses in new ways.”

The QEP development process became more explicit early in 2017 when the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs established the QEP Advisory Committee, primarily responsible for developing the Plan. In February 2017, a Morehouse Community Town Hall was convened to discuss options for the QEP topic. At that event, the consensus once again was that improving student writing was the top priority. The Director of General Education also reported that he had met with all departments on campus about the revised General Education curriculum. There again, the top concern across campus was writing. The Town Hall group also recognized that a simultaneous focus on Black Life, History, and Culture (BLHAC) could enrich the QEP focus, perhaps even increase the achievement of desired writing outcomes and simultaneously advance another mission goal. The topic of the QEP was then on the agenda of college-wide faculty meetings that followed in March, May, and August of 2017. The faculty was informed that the College was considering Writing as the QEP topic and was asked for feedback. Consistently, the faculty expressed support for the selection. We conducted a contest among the faculty, students, and staff to select the name for the QEP. “The Black Ink Project” was suggested by a faculty member and chosen as the project name.

Furthermore, the Discussion Luncheon Series among faculty, the Provost, and other Academic Affairs administrators continued with a Planning Retreat and Summer Institute with representatives from the same stakeholder groups. Later, Morehouse alumni, faculty, staff, students, and sponsors were surveyed to determine what they believed to be the greatest need in the education of the Men of Morehouse. The primary recurring theme among nearly all respondents was the need to better equip the Men of Morehouse with written communication skills vital to carrying on the tradition of articulate servant leadership for which Morehouse Men are known. Thus, the Black Ink Project is the most significant writing curriculum revision at Morehouse College in decades. I was appointed Director of The Black Ink Project. I presented research to the QEP Advisory Committee that supported the use of Culturally Relevant prompts (see Appendix 1), readings, curriculum materials, and pedagogy to enhance African American students’ academic achievement, retention, self-esteem, spoken and written language. After much discussion, we agreed that Black Life, History, and Culture (culturally relevant topics and readings) provided the underlying framework for The Black Ink Project.

Teaching Writing at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)

There is a continuous discussion about teaching writing and rhetorical composition, First-Year Writing Programs, and Writing Centers at HBCUs, which have a history of teaching literacy, language, and written discourse. In 1937, the College Language Association (CLA) was created because Blacks could not fully participate in MLA activities. (CLA was initially called the Association of Teachers of English in Negro Colleges.) The founder, Hugh M. Gloster, became President of Morehouse College. Members of CLA progressed with teaching English/Composition to Black students at Lincoln University and Morehouse College. Most striking is the relative scarcity of historical accounts of composition instruction and rhetorical practices at HBCUs. However, there are rich, complex rhetorical traditions that have developed at HBCUs. Three Symposiums held at North Carolina A&T (2014), Howard University (2018), and Morehouse College (2019) on Writing at Historically Black Colleges and Universities spotlighted the needs of writing program administrators, composition teachers, and faculty who teach writing at HBCUs.

In 1969, I was hired by Mina Shaughnessy to teach English in the SEEK Program at The City College of New York (CCNY). Back then, primarily white institutions (PWIs) did not have the experience of teaching writing to Black students. HBCUs had a long-established history of improving the writing skills of their students. I visited Clark Atlanta, Fisk, Howard, and Morehouse to review their writing curricula and learn their strategies for teaching writing to Black students. At CCNY, we developed English curricula that incorporated readings such as Richard Wright's Black Boy, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On the Mountain, the poetry of Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, Amiri Baraka, and other Black writings.

A recent edited collection 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 WPA work: (1) Afrocentric (African-centered) pedagogical materials are placed at the center of the curriculum; (2) programmatic assessment measures are designed with Black student success in mind; (3) successful writing programs understand that they can implement Afrocentric pedagogy and antiracist writing assessment practices and still support all students. Several chapters in the collection support the advantages of centering the teaching of writing to African American students from an African-centered point of view. This is the perspective of The Black Ink Project at Morehouse College.

Culturally Influenced Writing Style of African American Students

Writing, the production of written text, is inextricably embedded in cultural contexts; it is imperative to understand the conceptualization of the African world-view which is “compelled by the deep structure of African culture, the cultural factors, and cultural aspects, which projects interconnectedness, interdependency, appositional harmony, oneness, and the primacy of life” (Azibo 82). Fox suggests “cultural position” as a central concept in the exploration of African American student writers requires a pedagogy that investigates how “history, culture, institutions, social relations, and race intersect and influence writing” (292); and that “a central strategy of African American writers is to seek authorial control and legitimacy in the face of an audience [known or unknown] that seeks to deny the very literacy that African American [writers] demonstrate” (293). Ball noted that discourse preferences that are influenced by both social and cultural experiences could have positive effects on students’ [writing] (524). Students’ writing can be strengthened through culturally informed pedagogy. In a study I published in 1997, I found that the writing quality of students who wrote essays in response to culture-referenced topics elicited a more significant number of ideas from the culture-based knowledge of the students. Culture-referenced prompts encouraged African American writers to include more culture-based self and community knowledge (35). The nature of rhetoric/discourse is culturally specific. In addition to using topics in Black Life History and Culture as subjects for writing, students themselves are centered as sources of knowledge. Researchers (Ball, Fowler, Chaplin, Gay, Norment, and Wilson, among others) have suggested that the attitudes a writer acquires about written discourse are influenced by the writer's experiences and culture. Language not only maps the individual's culture but also facilitates and shapes thought. An understanding and validation of their linguistic styles of written language communication empower the writers.

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) and African Centered Pedagogy (ACP)

Developed by several talented researchers, such as Jaqueline Jordan Irvine and Gloria Ladson-Billings, culturally relevant pedagogy stresses the need for African American teachers to use their cultural competence and critical consciousness to make classroom choices. Ultimately, this leads to high academic achievement for Black students. A key element of CRP is the trust and relationships that teachers build with Black students. Through these relationships, teachers learn the strengths, needs, languages, and lifestyles of Black students. Affirmation and strategic use of this knowledge can help teachers make decisions that will support Black students. The degree to which African American education has been influenced by continental Africa’s cultural and educational traditions continues to be disputed. Scholars disagree as to how much of Africa’s inspirations are retained in the educational practices of African Americans. Nevertheless, there is no denying that Africa’s presence has remained resilient in many aspects of Black life in America.

African-Centered Pedagogy proposes using culturally relevant instruction to teach African American students and improve their personal, collective academic, and career success. This type of instruction as a pedagogy empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These cultural referents are not merely vehicles for bridging or explaining the culture; they are essential aspects of the curriculum in their own right.

The Black Ink Project (see Appendix 2) connects the writing skills development of Morehouse students to their exploration of topics related to Black Life, History, and Culture (BLHAC), a process that we believe increases their engagement and ultimately improves their writing proficiency. Students immerse themselves in the writing process at every stage of their educational experience through writing topics related to Black Life, History, and Culture. The essence of The Black Ink Project is to provide an overarching structure for student writing experiences at the College that ensures continuity and complementarity among the units, courses, and programs focusing on writing. Writing is incorporated throughout the curriculum of all majors and programs at Morehouse.

The Black Ink Project aims to improve the writing skills of all Morehouse students by emphasizing high-level written communication in several fundamental places: English Composition 101 and 102; First-Year Experience (FYE), the General Education Curriculum (GenEd), the BLHAC courses, and significant culminating writing assignments in the disciplines (capstone course); Faculty Workshops designed to teach faculty the techniques identified as the best practices to teach and assess writing; and assigning students to the Writing Center for individualized tutoring to develop and improve their written language skills.

(1) English 101 and 102 is a two-semester, freshman-level sequence in which enrollment is based on placement scores upon admission to the College. Writing and analytical skills are enhanced through extensive work in expository, argumentative, and documented essays. Course activities allow exploration of various perspectives in different disciplines and cultures, emphasizing works by African American authors and scholars.

(2) First-Year Experience (FYE): The primary purpose of the First-Year Experience is to guide and support incoming students in their efforts to make a successful transition from their high school experience to their new college environment. The course topics are carefully crafted to address specific adjustment needs and provide freshmen with new knowledge and information to help them succeed academically and personally in their first year. Note: These courses focus more on “theme/topic,” such as social justice, gender, cultural identity, and sustainability.

(3) The General Education Curriculum at Morehouse is distinctive in its deliberate use of texts, examples, perspectives, experiences, and principles by and from Black people from all over the world and across time, working across themes of social justice, equity, and servant leadership within the humanities, sciences, and business.

(4) Black, Life, History, and Culture is an integrative learning course grounded in understanding Africa and its Diaspora. These courses are grounded in the College's Mission to “teach the history and culture of Black people.” To demonstrate integrative learning in Black Life, History, and Culture, students: analyze the history and culture of Africa and the African Diaspora through multiple disciplines and critical perspectives, including but not exclusive to African-centered models; understand the diverse experiences, patterns, philosophies, theories, and ways of knowing to pertain to Africa and the African Diaspora; and integrate ideas, knowledge, and practice within the context of Black Life, History, and Culture.

(5) Writing in the Disciplines (WID) recognizes that each discipline has its unique language conventions, format, and structure. In other words, the style, organization, and format acceptable in one discipline may not be at all acceptable in another. WID suggests that to participate successfully in the academic discourse of their community, students must be taught discipline-specific conventions and should practice using these conventions.

(6) Capstone Course: In the fourth year of The Black Ink Project, each discipline will develop one or more Major Capstone Course(s) to provide students the opportunity to engage, integrate, practice, and demonstrate the knowledge and skills they have developed in their major courses and which reflect required learning outcomes. This course or experience will be designed by faculty in each discipline/major.

(7) The goal of the Faculty Writing Workshops scheduled for 2018-2024 is to improve the quality of writing instruction across the campus. Upon completion of the workshops, faculty members will use teaching techniques immediately transferable to their classrooms. In addition, faculty members who participate in workshops learn about writing pedagogy, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and designing practical writing assignments; writing in disciplines; designing writing assignments that motivate critical thinking/reading; writing/thinking as process; and how to incorporate culturally relevant materials and topics. All Morehouse faculty are responsible for writing instruction.

(8) The Writing Center provides many resources to help students not only complete the writing requirement but also continue to improve as writers throughout their undergraduate careers to become lifelong effective writers. The Writing Center provides writing workshops—in or out of class—tailored to each course’s writing assignments and the specific needs of students.

Assessment and Evaluation of The Black Ink Project

Writing assessment is an integral part of The Black Ink Project. Through assessment, we can place the student in the composition course best suited to his needs, monitor the effectiveness of the writing experience at Morehouse, and ensure that all students who graduate from Morehouse have the highest level of written language competencies. In addition, we collect and analyze supplementary data, which is used to improve curriculum and instruction and assess the Writing Program’s effectiveness.

Students’ writings are assessed to achieve learning outcomes using the Morehouse Writing Assessment Rubric (see Appendix 3). As a result of implementing the QEP, we anticipate improvement in students’ writing if students who progressed through the programs mentioned above and courses demonstrate the five learning outcomes in their writing at a higher proficiency than what they scored on their initial pre-test.

The Black Ink Project features a new institutional practice for Morehouse in assessing student writing. Electronic portfolios encourage process-based writing and reflection and generate authentic artifacts for assessment. In addition, The Black Ink Project increases faculty ownership of writing assessment, moving it from the margins to the center by opening regular conversations about how to improve teaching and learning. Artifacts collected from student electronic portfolios are evaluated using the Morehouse Writing Rubric. The development of an electronic portfolio system for the longitudinal assessment of student writings enables the QEP to evaluate the BLHAC writings of our students. The written artifacts stored in e-portfolios are evaluated to determine the level of achievement of the writing learning outcomes. All faculty have access to the students’ writing artifacts in the e-portfolios. Results obtained from various assessment instruments evaluate the success of the QEP’s implementation and adjust it as needed to modify activities and increase its effectiveness.

The Writing Proficiency Exam is a two-part essay examination that fulfills Morehouse’s writing proficiency graduation requirement. The first part of the examination is a 50-minute expository essay on a general knowledge topic. The second part of the examination is a 70-minute argumentative essay on a topic related to part one topic. In part two, the student is provided with the source material (from his discipline) and asked to incorporate those sources into the essay.

Morehouse College believes that The Black Ink Project can dramatically improve student learning outcomes by better preparing teachers and increasing students’ motivation through culturally relevant topics. The desired outcomes for the students are as follows: (1) After the freshmen year, 80% of the randomly selected students will average a two on the rubric associated with the four Student Learning Outcomes of Goal One; (2) After the sophomore year, 80% of the randomly selected students will average a three on the rubric associated with the four Student Learning Outcomes of Goal One; (3) After the junior year, 80% of the randomly selected students will average a three on the rubric associated with the four Student Learning Outcomes of Goal One; (4) After the senior year, 80% of the randomly selected students will average a four on the rubric associated with the four Student Learning Outcomes of Goal One; and (5) On the faculty and research outcomes, Morehouse aims to achieve a four on the rubric associated with all of those outcomes by the end of the project period.

Administration and Staffing

During Fall 2017, Morehouse College appointed me the Director of the QEP -The Black Ink Project. Previously, I was Director of Writing Programs at The City College of New York (1983-1989) and Temple University (1989-1995). I constructed Writing Programs that infused culturally relevant readings from the Core Curriculum and General Education Curriculum. As Director, I manage the QEP and am responsible for the day-to-day QEP implementation efforts. To accomplish marketing, faculty outreach, and assessment, the Director worked with offices on campus such as the Office of Strategic Communication (OSC), the Office of Faculty Development (OFD), and the Department of Institutional Research and Effectiveness (DIRE). OSC developed a comprehensive marketing strategy plan for administrators, alumni, faculty, staff, and students. OFD developed and assessed faculty workshops. DIRE provides the formative assessment of the student learning outcomes and evaluation of program implementation and effectiveness. The Advisory Committee provides support and advice to the QEP Director and oversees the implementation of The Black Ink Project.

The Black Ink Project Reader Corps

The BIP Reader Corps, comprised of nine rotating faculty members representing a cross-section of disciplines, are trained in writing assessment best practices. They conduct the assessment of student writings produced in designated courses in First Year Experience, English Composition 101 and 102, General Education, writing-intensive discipline-specific, and Capstone courses. The number of Readers is based on the number of writing samples we have to read. The assessment process began in Fall 2018. The primary assessment methodology directly evaluates the writing of a random sampling of students grouped in cohorts beginning in their freshman year of matriculation. The first cohort was selected in Fall 2018. The training of the faculty began in Spring and Summer 2018. To assist in establishing a helpful assessment process, we identified the writing samples of students in classes taught by faculty members who participated in QEP faculty development workshops. In addition, in 2018, baseline writing samples of freshmen and seniors who had not progressed through the new curriculum were collected for comparison.

Of particular importance is that The Black Ink Project features a new institutional practice for Morehouse in assessing student writing. Electronic portfolios encourage process-based writing and reflection and generate authentic artifacts for assessment. In addition, The Black Ink Project increases faculty ownership of writing assessment, moving it from the margins to the center by opening regular conversations about how to improve teaching and learning. Artifacts collected from student electronic portfolios are evaluated using the Morehouse Writing Assessment Rubric. Rubrics promote validity and reliability on the part of the evaluators and also provide students with perspectives on precisely what is valued and expected in their writing.

Resources and Budget

Morehouse College is committed to the success of The Black Ink Project. The budget allocation over the five years of the QEP is $250,000 ($50,000 per year; see Appendix 4 for timeline). It supports the implementation of the foundational components of the program—such as compensation to the QEP Director, consultant fees, faculty development workshop stipends, and compensation for faculty participation in the Reader Corps. In addition, Morehouse’s administration has committed to scaling up and fully institutionalizing support for this comprehensive approach to improving student writing proficiency.

What I Learned as Director of The Black Ink Project

We completed an extensive marketing plan of the program and invited faculty, staff, and students to become involved in the planning and to implement The Black Ink Project. Dissemination of information about the BIP is continuous. Even with this, there were concerns about incorporating BLHAC into First-Year Experience, the new General Education Curriculum, within disciplines, and Capstone courses. In addition, there were questions from the faculty implementing the WAC and writing-intensive courses and maintaining faculty support to develop these courses and their participation in the various writing workshops. One of the most complicated aspects of generating a new writing program initiative into the college curriculum is communicating its urgency and planned execution to the faculty, which must be invested to succeed. Reflecting on what the QEP Advisory Committee and I might have done, we should have continued conversations at our General Faculty meetings and with faculty from each academic major.

We should have solicited the support of our divisional administrators by requesting time to discuss the BIP at divisional meetings. Instead, we plan to actively communicate with our faculty as they design and teach their courses moving forward with our faculty. To accomplish our goal of developing a community of writing instructors across the disciplines, we will continue to listen and respond to our faculty throughout the remaining two years of The Black Ink Project. We keep the program formative to engage faculty and students through the tenure of the BIP and beyond.

Our efforts to enhance the writing skills of our students require writing assignments that incorporate BLHAC. Consequently, our new writing-intensive seminars began focusing on the instructors’ teaching methods, pedagogical topics, and best practices for teaching writing to male African American college students. Even though we had writing workshops, individual meetings with each faculty would have better supported them as they developed and taught their courses. Our continuous task is to develop a BLHC writing curriculum for the college.

Final Thoughts

Note that The Black Ink Project is the most significant writing curriculum revision at Morehouse College in decades. Through implementing The Black Ink Project (See Appendices 2 and 4), we have created a unique, comprehensive writing program that incorporates Black Life, History, and Culture and engages faculty and students in a sustainable and developing program supported by an enthused faculty and administration. It is a program that offers transformational experiences for both faculty and students. Subsequent workshops and meetings with our instructors have affirmed that our goals for improving students’ writing have been clarified and incorporated more effectively into course syllabi. Involving faculty across disciplines at Morehouse has facilitated collaboration for writing instruction, writing to learn, and communication among our administrators, faculty, students, and alumni. Subsequent workshops and meetings with our instructors have affirmed that our faculty’s goals for student writing have been clarified and incorporated more effectively into their syllabi.

For Morehouse students to become better writers, and if they are to learn how to employ writing as a learning tool more effectively, we have incorporated Black Life, History, and Culture writings within each discipline. We support our faculty in all aspects of their work to improve our students’ writing: consulting on the design of writing assignments, modifying or developing a new course, and offering workshops on grading and responding to students’ writings. To demystify The Black Ink Project and the Writing in the Discipline program (WID), we developed guidelines for writing in the discipline for 28 academic programs at Morehouse College. These guidelines are specific to each academic major and provide information and recommendations for how Black Life, History, and Culture can be implemented in each discipline. These guidelines defined WID, discussed the benefits of WID, provided specific writing characteristics found in a particular program, and offered writing assignments that qualify a course as Black Life, History, and Culture writing course. We also sent biographical information to faculty about prominent African Americans who made significant contributions to each of the 28 major academic areas at Morehouse. Furthermore, before a new course proposal is approved by the College Education Policy Committee (CEPC), it must demonstrate how it improves students’ writing skills. Finally, we provided suggestions for incorporating writing in the course/syllabus.

Our Morehouse Challenge

The mission of Morehouse College is to develop men with disciplined minds who will lead lives of leadership and service. Morehouse realizes this mission as a private historically Black liberal arts college for men by emphasizing its students’ intellectual and character development. In addition, the College assumes special responsibility for teaching the history and culture of Black people. Morehouse is an academic community dedicated to teaching, scholarship, and service, and the continuing search for truth as a liberating force. As such, the College offers instructional programs in three divisions—business and economics, humanities and social sciences, and science and mathematics— as well as extracurricular activities that develop skills in oral and written communications, analytical and critical thinking, and interpersonal relationships.

In 2018, Morehouse’s President, Dr. David A. Thomas, set an ambitious goal for the graduating class of 2022 to have at least a 70% graduation rate. The Black Ink Project is a critical component that will net great returns and allow us to enhance outcomes related to retention, persistence, and graduation rates. With the support of Morehouse’s Writing Program and Writing Center, the Black Ink Project helps the College meet the strategic goals of enhanced recruitment and admissions, increased persistence toward the degree, and improved four and six-year graduation rates.

Finally, we are committed to a comprehensive Writing Program at Morehouse that seeks to draw on a long tradition of educating Black males to be well-read, well-traveled, well-spoken, well-dressed, well- balanced and to write well in order to be leaders with a particular focus on social justice, gender, cultural identity, and sustainability. Morehouse College is positioned to produce research on undergraduate Black males’ writing and writing pedagogy, particularly on culturally relevant topics in the writing process. Incorporating African American cultural readings into the writing curriculum provides students with content knowledge that facilitates critical reading/thinking skills and enhances analytical writing in each discipline and each mode of discourse. Texts by and about African Americans connect students with realistic and relevant writing.

Acknowledgments: I gratefully acknowledge the support and assistance of the QEP Advisory Board: Drs. Ardis Blanchard, Tina Chang, Andrew Douglas, Stephane Dunn, Juliet Elu, Cynthia Hewitt, Keith Hollingsworth, Kipton Jensen, Frederick Knight, Monique Earl-Lewis, Samuel Livingston, Yohance Murry, Sharif Wallace, Shelby N. Wilson, and Ulrica Wilson. I thank them for their time and effort. Also, sincere thanks to Former Provost Michael Hodge, Dr. Leah Creque, Artimus Cunningham, Pamela Heath, Symere Evans, Natalie Gladney, and my colleagues in the English Department at Morehouse College.

Appendices

1. Appendix 1: Pre- and Post-test Topics – Fall 2018/2019 and Spring 2019/2020
2. Appendix 2: Morehouse College’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP)
3. Appendix 3: Morehouse Writing Assessment Rubric
4. Appendix 4: QEP Timeline

Appendix 1: Pre- and Post-test Topics—Fall 2018/2019 and Spring 2019/2020

1A “No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to know.” Alice Walker
2A “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” James Baldwin
3A “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” Malcolm X

1B “When you control a man's thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions.” Carter G. Woodson
2B “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
3B “The color of the skin is in no ways connected with strength of the mind or intellectual powers.” Benjamin Banneker

1C “Say it loud. I am Black, and I'm proud." James Brown
2C “Oppression makes a wise man mad.” Frederick Douglass
3C “There is no future for a people who deny their past.” Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

1D “Education is the medium by which a people are prepared for the creation of their own particular civilization and the advancement and glory of their own race.” Marcus Garvey
2D “For colored people to acquire learning in this country makes tyrants quake and tremble on their sandy foundation.” David Walker
3D “One ever feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” W. E. B. Du Bois

1E “What you do for yourself depends on what you think of yourself. And what you think of yourself depends on what you know of yourself. And what you know of yourself depends on what you have been told.” Ghanaian proverb
2E “When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” Ralph Ellison
3E “The first thing to do is to get into every school, private, public or otherwise, Negro literature and history [art, music, dance, anthropology, religion, political science, economics, philosophy, sociology, psychology, science and technology, film]. We are not trying to displace other literature, but trying to acquaint all children with Negro literature and history.” Booker T. Washington

Appendix 2: Morehouse College’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP)

The Black Ink Project Goals and Outcomes

The overarching goal of The Black Ink Project is to increase the writing proficiency of students. As part of Morehouse College’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), The Black Ink Project provides them with opportunities to immerse themselves in the writing process at every stage of their educational experience at the College—from English Composition 101 and 102, First-Year Experience (FYE), the General Education Curriculum (Gen Ed), Black Life, History, and Culture (BLHAC), and to significant culminating senior-level writing assignments in the disciplines (WID). Consistent with the tradition of articulate servant leadership for which Morehouse Men are known, this goal will be informed and facilitated through students' selection of writing topics related to Black Life, History, and Culture (BLHAC). The key to the success of this plan will be equipping faculty with the knowledge of culturally relevant pedagogy and strategies for teaching and assessing writing skills across the curriculum and within disciplines. The project emphasizes assessment and use of results to inform strategies for improving student writing over time. This focused assessment process over the five years of the QEP will also contribute to building and strengthening a culture of writing at Morehouse College. The Black Ink Project’s specific goals, anticipated Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs), and Faculty Development Outcomes (FDOs) are as follows:

Goal One: Provide students with numerous opportunities to engage in writing activities that improve their written communication skills throughout their matriculation.

Students can: (1) Produce a grammatically and mechanically correct written document with proper sourcing, if required; (2) Organize a coherent and cohesive written document; (3) Utilize critical thinking when producing a written document; and (5) Correctly apply an appropriate mode of writing, considering the context and purpose of the document.

Goal Two: Facilitate student exploration and selection of writing topics related to Black Life, History, and Culture (BLHAC) in First-Year Experience, General Education, and discipline-specific courses. Students are expected to write a document that: (1) Draws upon aspects of the lives, histories, and cultures of Black people (BLHAC).

Goal Three: Provide opportunities for faculty development in teaching and assessment strategies to facilitate improvements in student writing and the use of BLHAC topics. Through Faculty Development Workshops, faculty are: (1) Trained to use culturally relevant teaching strategies and assessment methods as they prepare students in First-Year Experience, General Education, and discipline-specific courses for writing assignments using BLHAC content; and (2) Trained how to design significant writing assignments for junior/senior students using culturally relevant topics in their discipline.

Goal 4: Morehouse College will research Black males' writing and writing pedagogy, particularly on using culturally relevant topics in the writing process. (FDOs) are as follows: (1) Conduct research on the use of culturally relevant topics in the writing process; and (2) Faculty members work to establish a Morehouse-based internal and virtual global community to share and discuss results of The Black Ink Project’s research. Faculty Research in Progress: Morehouse College is determined to produce research on undergraduate African American males' writing, writing strategies, and pedagogy, particularly on using culturally relevant topics in the writing process. The Morehouse Writing Program is actively working with faculty to produce the following scholarly articles: (1) Some Preliminary Results of Culturally-Referenced Prompts; (2) Teaching Writing to African American Men; (3) Some Discourses Features of African American Men; (4) Integrating Culturally Relevant Materials: Writing in Disciplines; (5) Use of Daily Journal Entries to Improve African American Males’ Writing; (6) African American Men Personal Narratives. We are discussing with the editors of the College Language Association Journal (CLA) and the Journal of Basic Writing (JBW) for a Special Issue of writing research produced by Morehouse faculty.

Appendix 3: Morehouse Writing Assessment Rubric

The Morehouse Writing Assessment Rubric, slightly modified from the Association of American Colleges & Universities Written Communication VALUE Rubric, promotes validity and reliability and provides students with perspectives on precisely what is valued and expected in their writing. The Rubric assesses four levels of writing proficiency: Novice (1), Development (2), Intermediate (3), and Proficient (4). See below:

	Proficient(4)	Intermediate (3)	Developmental(2)	Novice (1)
Context of and Purpose for Communication Includes considerations of audience, purpose, and the circumstances surrounding the writing task(s).	Demonstrates a thorough understanding of context, audience, and purpose that is responsive to the assigned task(s) and focuses all elements of the work.	Demonstrates adequate consideration of context, audience, and purpose and a clear focus on the assigned task(s) (e.g., the task aligns with audience, purpose, and context).	Demonstrates awareness of context, audience, purpose, and the assigned tasks(s) (e.g., begins to show awareness of audience's perceptions and assumptions).	Demonstrates minimal attention to context, audience, purpose, and the assigned tasks(s) (e.g., expectation of instructor or self as audience).
Content Development	Uses appropriate, relevant, and compelling content to illustrate mastery of the subject, conveying the individual's understanding and shaping the whole work.	Uses appropriate, relevant, and compelling content to explore ideas within the context of the discipline and shape the whole work.	Uses appropriate and relevant content to develop and explore ideas through most of the work.	Uses appropriate and relevant content to develop simple ideas in some parts of the work.
Organization	Organizational pattern (specific introduction and conclusion, sequenced material within the body, and transitions) is clearly and consistently observable and skillful, making the content of the communication cohesive.	Organizational pattern (specific introduction and conclusion, sequenced material within the body, and transitions) is clearly and consistently observable within the communication.	Organizational pattern (specific introduction and conclusion, sequenced material within the body, and transitions) is intermittently observable within the communication.	Organizational pattern (specific introduction and conclusion, sequenced material within the body, and transitions) is not observable within the communication.
Genre and Disciplinary Conventions Formal and informal rules are inherent in the expectations for communicating in particular forms and academic fields (please see glossary).	Demonstrates detailed attention to and successful execution of a wide range of conventions particular to a specific discipline and communication task (s), including organization, content, presentation, formatting, and stylistic choices	Demonstrates consistent use of important conventions particular to a specific discipline and communication task(s), including organization, content, presentation, and stylistic choices	Follows expectations appropriate to a specific discipline and/or communication task(s) for essential organization, content, and presentation	Attempts to use a consistent system for primary organization and presentation.
Sources and Evidence	Demonstrates skillful use of high-quality, credible, relevant sources to develop ideas appropriate for the discipline and genre of the communication.	Demonstrates consistent use of credible, relevant sources to support ideas situated within the discipline and genre of the communication.	Demonstrates an attempt to use credible and relevant sources to support ideas appropriate for the discipline and genre of the communication.	Demonstrates an attempt to use sources to support ideas in the communication.
Language	Language choices are imaginative, memorable, and compelling and enhance the effectiveness of the communication. In addition, language is appropriate to the audience.	Language choices are thoughtful and generally support the effectiveness of the communication. In addition, language is appropriate to the audience.	Languages choices are mundane and commonplace and partially support the effectiveness of the communication. Language is partially appropriate to the audience.	Language choices are unclear and minimally support the effectiveness of the presentation. Language in communication is not appropriate to the audience.

Appendix 4: QEP Timeline

Month	Activity	Pre Planning	The Black Ink Project
		2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24
Oct	Communicate The Black Ink Project to the campus community.	■
Aug	Test the culturally relevant prompts with the incoming freshman class.	■
Aug - May	Collect writing samples from students to serve as the baseline for comparison.	■
Oct - May	Test E-portfolio on Blackboard.	■
Aug	Administer Writing Assignments to Students in the New Student Orientation.		■	■	■	■	■
Aug - May	Collect writing samples from English Composition 1 and 2 and FYE classes.		■	■	■	■	■
Aug - May	Facilitate Faculty workshops to train faculty on how to give better and grade culturally relevant writing assignments (2 to 3 assignments per semester).		■	■	■	■	■
Dec/May	Create and train Reader Corps		■	■	■	■	■
May -Jun	Reader Corps evaluate a random sampling of writing assignments from across campus (End of year).		■	■	■	■	■
Aug	Reader Corps prepares and presents an evaluation summary report summarizing evaluations to faculty as formative assessment.			■	■	■	■
Aug - May	Collect writing samples from sophomore-level General Education classes.			■	■	■	■
Aug - May	Develop significant writing assignments (using BLHAC topics) at the junior and senior levels in all academic disciplines.		■	■	■
Nov - April	Collect upper-level writing assignments in all academic disciplines.				■	■	■
May - Jun	Send Annual reports to Faculty and Provost on progress in the QEP			■	■	■	■
May - Jun	Review Mid-plan report to make adjustments as necessary				■
Jan - Jun	Submit Final report						■

Notes

1. A Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) is a plan to implement and assess a focused set of initiatives designed to improve student learning across the university. Writing was chosen as the topic of the QEP because it imparts a skill that touches all areas of college life and is in high demand by employers and graduate schools. Overall, the QEP provides an opportunity to coordinate and strengthen the educational experiences of Morehouse students. For more information about what a QEP is or further details about the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), visit the SACSCOC Commission on Colleges website at http://sacscoc.org. (Return to text.)

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