Questions to Help Further Your Understanding of the
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Background
Key to writing the Analysis Statement for Portfolio Seminar is for you to demonstrate your understanding of the core values of the Writing Arts major, and to demonstrate that understanding using specific textual evidence drawn from five samples of your own writing.
Each of the nine core values, as you will see below, have three measurable outcomes the faculty have designed, and the objectives of Writing Arts courses are meant to support you in achieving these outcomes. Depending on the student outcomes intended for you to produce in a Writing Arts course, a given core value may be introduced, emphasized, and/or reinforced. As you read through the core values, outcomes, and questions, consider carefully which pieces you will include in your portfolio. Keep in mind that there are no perfect performances; there will always be gaps between our intentions and what we actually accomplished. You are called upon in this Analysis Statement to acknowledge these gaps and articulate them in your writing of the statement. Seeing where you failed is as important, if not more so, than noting where you succeeded. Toward the end of triggering you to reflect, we have developed questions designed to assist you in the process of writing your analysis statement. Derived from the values and their outcomes, these questions will challenge you in two ways: they will challenge you to think through (on the pages of your statement) each of the department’s core values and correlative outcomes, doing so with depth, nuance, and completeness; and these questions will challenge you to ground your understanding of each value using evidence drawn from your five specific writing projects included in your portfolio. While responding to these questions will allow you to generate material to include in your analysis statement, you will likely not include all of your responses, and you may not necessarily organize your discussion to mirror the sequence of the questions below. You will need to make writerly decisions concerning what to include and what to exclude, and how to arrange the document to fulfill its purpose: to demonstrate to your audience (a member of the Writing Arts faculty) your understanding of the core values through reflecting on your writing, whether or not you were successful in your writing projects. To this end, discuss with your Writing Arts advisor what an acceptable page length would be for you. Each core value has three outcomes that are, depending on the course, introduced, emphasized, or reinforced in the work of the course itself. |
Overview of the core values
The Writing Arts faculty asserts that good writing reflects the core values of the Writing Arts major, and that such writing goes well beyond mere visible markings: writing employs multiple technologies to create meaning and as a result, writing makes a difference. The practice of writing given by the core values calls upon the writer to think critically, to be receptive to the writing situation and audience, to rhetorically adapt to the genre they are writing within, and to write with a creative purpose. Given the potential impact writing may have, professional writers are responsible for the power they exercise in the deliberate and researched choices they make. Therefore, the Writing Arts Department values the following for students in the Writing Arts Program:
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Value 1: Writing Arts students will demonstrate understanding of a variety of genre conventions and exhibit rhetorical adaptability in applying those conventions.
Student Outcomes for value 1:
Outcome 1: Students will demonstrate an understanding of genre and the variety of conventions employed within a given genre. Outcome 2: Students will demonstrate how they have rhetorically adapted to write within a given genre through following and challenging the variety of conventions used within that genre. Outcome 3: Students will demonstrate some degree of mastery of multiple genres of writing (as expressed in the corresponding conventions), as well as some degree of flexibility when adapting conventions of a given genre to situation, purpose, and audience. Questions for value 1:
Value 2: Writing Arts students will understand theories of writing and reading and be able to apply them to their own writing.
Student Outcomes for value 2:
Outcome 1: Students will approach an understanding of “theory” through studying and applying theories of reading and writing grounded in the field of creative writing. Outcome 2: Students will approach an understanding of “theory” through studying and applying theories of reading and writing grounded in the field of rhetoric and writing studies. Outcome 3: Students will approach an understanding of “theory” through studying and applying theories of reading and writing grounded in the field of technical and professional writing. Note: depending on which area you have specialized or concentrated in, you will likely only have produced two of these three outcomes (one and two, or two and three). Therefore, you need not demonstrate having achieved all three outcomes. Questions for value 2:
Value 3: Writing Arts students will demonstrate the ability to critically read complex and sophisticated texts in a variety of subjects.
Student Outcomes for value 3:
Outcome 1: Students will notice and question the limits imposed by their initial point of view when approaching a given text, allowing them to think through the moving parts of a text, to understand and articulate the purpose behind its design, the targeted audience, and the context the text responds to. Outcome 2: Students will be able to bring critical perspectives into conversation with a given text. Outcome 3: Students will be able to evaluate how to incorporate the conventions and the knowledge gained from critically reading such texts into their own writing. While we would like this response to be specific--citing and then reading (on the page) key works, including those both within and outside your WA program--you do not need to draw from your portfolio pieces in discussing this. Questions for value 3:
Value 4: Writing Arts students will be able to investigate, discover, evaluate, and incorporate information in the creation of text.
Student Outcomes for value 4:
Outcome 1: Students will articulate appropriate research questions that challenge them to generate new knowledge for themselves and others, and they will employ a range of strategies to investigate these questions, as well as begin to discover, evaluate, and incorporate material into their writing. Outcome 2: Students will learn what it means to discover relevant information, sources, direct observations, and other assets in a variety of modes, and to evaluate these materials for their appropriateness to the genre and purpose at hand. Outcome 3: Students will effectively evaluate information, sources, direct observations, and other assets, determining their value for use within a given project, while adhering to principles and practices of ethics, honesty, and fair use when incorporating the writing of others. Questions for value 4:
Value 5: Writing Arts students will demonstrate self-critical awareness of their writing.
Student Outcomes for value 5:
Outcome 1: Students will understand what it means to be self-critical: to discern wisely what works and what doesn’t work within a given piece of their own writing. Outcome 2: Students will be able to closely read and evaluate their writing, allowing them to acknowledge limits to their writing, opening them up to high order concerns within writing processes, such as 1) rhetorical strategies in response to context, purpose, and audience; 2) organization; 3) style; 4) genre; 5) intertextuality; and 6) research. Outcome 3: Students will be able to articulate decisions made in all stages of the writing process in terms of (1) rhetorical strategies used to address a specific audience with a guiding purpose to respond to a given context; (2) organization; (3) style, diction, and syntax; (4) genre; (5) intertextuality; and (6) research. You may choose to use a series of drafts of a piece selected for the portfolio, as well as the social interaction (student and instructor feedback) that were essential to the process to explain the decisions you made in revising. Be specific, and use specific textual evidence. Questions for value 5:
Value 6: Writing Arts students will understand the impact evolving technologies have on the creation of written texts.
Student Outcomes for value 6:
Outcome 1: Students will demonstrate awareness of how developing technologies of writing impact the way writing gets produced, and also impact the adaptable identity of the writer writing with and within a given technology. Outcome 2: Students will understand what it means to participate as a writer within digital publics, such that students will be able to develop a public, writerly, and ethically sound persona. Outcome 3: Students will investigate how digital texts have impacted a variety of audiences and communities and will learn and practice ways to enter into rhetorically strategic dialogue--with a researched range of sources--as a member of a given digital public. Questions for value 6:
Value 7: Writing arts students will show an understanding of the power of the written word and that such power requires ethical responsibilities in its application.
Student Outcomes for value 7:
Outcome 1: Students will successfully demonstrate understanding their ethical responsibilities as writers writing within multiple contexts, including the role of the principles and practices of honesty as a necessary constraint when writing for a wide range of publics, including for the university. Outcome 2: Students will grasp the ethical importance of honoring other perspectives and of negotiating their writerly role, with responsibility, within multiple publics as they are shaped by social contexts. Outcome 3: Students will develop their understanding of the power of writing to shape reality, and that all ethical writers must own up to the impact of their writing, even in the form of unintended consequences. Questions for value 7:
Value 8: Writing Arts students will understand the rhetorical role of style in writing, including the dynamics of usage, mechanics, and grammar, dependent as they are on context, purpose, and audience.
Student Outcomes for value 8:
Outcome 1: Students will produce writing that follows common usage, grammar, and mechanics appropriate to the context, purpose, and audience of the given rhetorical situation. Outcome 2: Students will understand the role of figural language--language that diverges from common usage--in writing effective prose, and will develop a repertoire of stylistic maneuvers available for use within multiple contexts, purposes, and audiences. Outcome 3: Students will explore the relationship between style and the social, cultural, and ethical implications of stylistic choices. Questions for value 8:
Value 9: Writing Arts students will have knowledge of the professions available to them or will be able to articulate how they will apply their understanding of writing in their future career, or both.
Student Outcomes for value 9:
Outcome 1: Students will demonstrate familiarity with professions and/or post-graduate studies involving writing, including with industry and/or academic stakeholders, such as agents and editors, and/or professors and administration, and how these stakeholders align with, support, and challenge, the working writer/teacher of writing. Outcome 2: Students will be acquainted with the basic practices of presenting oneself in the world as a professional, informed by projects that extend beyond the work done in the Writing Arts major. Outcome 3: Students will begin to generate a professional ethos that is skilled in rhetorically adapting to novel situations, in which they may create opportunities where none seemed to be. You do not need to draw from your portfolio pieces in discussing this value, but you should demonstrate knowledge gained from your experiences in the Writing Arts program. Questions for value 9:
Adopted September 2008/Revised 2009, 2011, 2013, 2016
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The Analysis Statement
Core Values and Learning Outcomes
Questions Concerning Core Values
PS AS Peer Group Instructions
Portfolio Contents and Uploading Hints
Checklist for Portfolio Seminar
Holistic Grading Rubric for Portfolio Seminar
Commonly Asked Questions about Portfolio Seminar
By Students
By Instructors
Core Values and Learning Outcomes
Questions Concerning Core Values
PS AS Peer Group Instructions
Portfolio Contents and Uploading Hints
Checklist for Portfolio Seminar
Holistic Grading Rubric for Portfolio Seminar
Commonly Asked Questions about Portfolio Seminar
By Students
By Instructors