Teaching & Learning Goals
Taken together, the courses in the First-Year Writing Program at DePaul University seek to develop student competencies in five general categories: rhetorical knowledge; critical thinking, reading and writing; writing processes; and knowledge of conventions.
Rhetorical Knowledge
By the end of FYW, students should be able to demonstrate that they can:
· Define and focus on a purpose or purposes
· Interpret and respond to different audiences
· Respond appropriately to different kinds of rhetorical situations
· Apply conventions of format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation
· Apply appropriate tone, diction, and level of formality
· Demonstrate how genres shape reading and writing
· Write in several genres
Critical Thinking, Reading and Writing
By the end of FYW, students should be able to demonstrate that they can:
· Employ writing and reading for inquiry, thinking, and communicating
· Respond and evaluate texts in multiple genres and media
· Demonstrate that a writing assignment is a series of tasks that includes finding, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources
· Integrate their own ideas with those of others
· Interpret and explain the relationships among language, knowledge, and power
Processes
By the end of FYW, students should to demonstrate that they can:
· Recognize and articulate the value of using multiple drafts to create and complete a successful text
· Exhibit flexible strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proof-reading
· Demonstrate understanding that writing is an open process that permits writers to use later invention and re-thinking to revise their work
· Explain the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes
· Critique their own and others’ works
· Apply a variety of technologies to address a range of audiences.
Knowledge of Conventions
By the end of FYW, students should be able to demonstrate that they can:
· Demonstrate competency in using common formats for different kinds of texts.
· Apply a variety of genre conventions ranging from structure and paragraphing to tone and mechanics.
· Correctly document their work.
· Correctly apply in their writing such surface features as syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.