The purpose of this class is to…
help students use writing as a tool of liberal learning (particularly as a means of understanding what they read), of thinking critically, and of clarifying values; to lead students to embrace their opportunities as academic writers—to use writing not only as a means of organizing and reporting knowledge, but also as a means to understand and deepen knowledge.
By the end of this course, students will be able to research efficiently and effectively both independently and collaboratively. Students will be able to engage in on-going academic conversations. Students will be able to recognize rhetorical situations. Students will also be able to provide critical and constructive feedback to peers.
So, how do we teach this? (bold represents official language):
1. We teach that connecting to and affecting an audience is not an easy task, and we teach achieving it as a process that can be practiced, instead of a singular text that demonstrates it. ie: Engage in writing as a process, including various invention heuristics (brainstorming, for example), gathering evidence, considering audience, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading.
- Discussion and Development of ideas
- Practicing peer-review skills
- Drafting
2. We practice interacting with each other so that we can observe audience perception and practice affecting audience, with immediate and tangible responses. ie: Engage in the collaborative, social aspects of written composition, and use these as tools for learning.
- Discussion
- Learning about ourselves and other various people and their social concerns
3.We look at how other texts achieve this goal with a eye towards imitating practices that work. ie: Use language to explore and analyze contemporary multicultural, global, and international questions.
4. We learn the expectations of an academic audience and how to find out these expectations. ie: Demonstrate how to use composition aids, such as handbooks, dictionaries, online aids, and tutors and Use grammatical, stylistic, and mechanical formats and conventions appropriate for a variety of audiences, but in particular the formal academic audience that makes up the discourse community with which you will also become more familiar in this course.
5. We learn what the conversation that is going on is so that we can connect to it when we attempt to enter it. ie: Gather, summarize, synthesize and explain information from various sources.
6. We learn how to speak to each other and ourselves about our work. ie: Critique your and others’ work in written, visual and oral formats.
7. We learn how to relate to many different audiences and use language and conventions that put the audience in the situation that will best help us get the desired results. ie: Produce coherent, organized, readable compositions for a variety of rhetorical situations.
8. We learn that writing is a process and that the most we can ever hope to get out of writing a piece is to understand how we made our decisions and how they worked; thus understanding how to adjust in the future. ie: Reflect on what contributed to your composition process and evaluate your own work.