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Scenes from Writing and Rhetoric

General Education Writing Learning Outcomes

All of our general education writing classes at URI have the following learning outcomes:

  1. Rhetorical Knowledge:
    1. Students recognize different situations for writing and responding.
    2. Students practice different types of writing appropriate to different situations, including writing from field-based and/or text-based research.
    3. Students reflect on the appropriateness of their choices for the rhetorical situation.
    4. Students produce texts or documents that meet the demands of the rhetorical situation in terms of focus, development, organization, coherence, and correctness.

  2. Composing, Revising, and Editing Processes:
    1. Students recognize and enact writing as a multi-step process.
    2. Students practice multiple rounds of invention, research, feedback, and revision.
    3. Students reflect on which strategies work for them, and identify crucial components of their own writing processes.
    4. Students produce a final portfolio or other final project that meets expectations for finished, polished work ready to be evaluated.

  3. Collaborative Production and Evaluation of Texts:
    1. Students recognize the value of others' insights, research, and reactions.
    2. Students practice finding research that deepens their understanding of a topic.
    3. Students practice providing formative responses to one another on drafts-in-progress.
    4. Students produce together at least one writing project or several impromptu documents or responses.

  4. Reflective Learning:
    1. Students recognize the difference between the project itself, and their reflective thinking on the project.
    2. Students practice integrating insights from reflections in one context to other projects.
    3. Students reflect on themselves and articulate their developing identities as writers.
    4. Students produce reflective elements that introduce their final artifacts. These elements should reflect on learning, and identify the choices and changes made in preparing the portfolio or final project.

  5. Conventions and Craft:
    1. Students recognize standards of correctness, usage, and style.
    2. Students practice a range of styles, registers, and conventions.
    3. Students practice editing for repeated patterns of error.
    4. Students reflect on their "personal" writing style and learn strategies for expanding their repertoire.
    5. Students produce a final set of work (the portfolio or other final project) that adheres to the conventions of Standard Written English and to either MLA or APA documentation styles.

    Check out the Rhode Map to see what courses apply to each of the above learning outcomes