Writing Arts Core values
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The Department of Writing Arts has designed a list of 9 core values, and correlative learning outcomes, to help guide Writing Arts majors.
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NOTE: While the Core Values of the Writing Arts major are fully established, the learning outcomes listed here are still under development by the Writing Arts faculty, and so will likely undergo minor revisions. Consequently, you should use the learning outcomes to help you in generating material for your Analysis Statement.
Core Value I
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Writing Arts students will demonstrate understanding of a variety of genre conventions and exhibit rhetorical adaptability in applying those conventions.
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.
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Core Value II
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Writing Arts students will understand theories of writing and reading and be able to apply them to their own writing.
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
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Core Value III
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Writing Arts students will demonstrate the ability to critically read complex and sophisticated texts in a variety of subjects.
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.
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Core Value IV
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Writing Arts students will be able to investigate, discover, evaluate and incorporate material into the creation of text.
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
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Core Value V
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Writing Arts students will demonstrate self-critical awareness of their writing.
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.
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Core Value VI
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Writing Arts students will understand the impact evolving technologies have on the creation of written texts.
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.
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Core Value VII
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Writing Arts students will show an understanding of the power of the written word and that such power requires ethical responsibilities in its application.
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 variety 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.
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Core Value VIII
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Writing Arts students will understand the rhetorical nature of style in writing, including the dynamics of usage, mechanics, and grammar, dependent as they are on context, purpose, and audience.
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.
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Core Value IX
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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.
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.
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PLEASE NOTE: First Year Writing Program (FYWP), which consists of College Composition courses, uses a different set of core values. They can be found here.
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