Topics

Section 1

Content

Developed by Kory Ching and Amy Wan, English and Center for Writing Studies

Students write their way through the undergraduate curriculum, in part simply to demonstrate what they know about a subject, but also to rehearse and demonstrate disciplinary modes of knowing and expression. This project examines how students use writing to make sense of the university's research mission as they themselves engage in academic inquiry. It also investigates students' extracurricular writing and attempts to discern how students compose a coherent "writing life" that that draws from their various identities during their undergraduate years.

• UIUC's Freshman Rhetoric Program
  "We approach writing as a process: recursive rather than linear, messy rather than neat, exploratory rather than formulaic. But in doing so, our goal is to produce writing that conveys its argument carefully, effectively and professionally. Rhetoric courses stress what the student will need to know to meet the demands of college writing."
• University of Illinois Composition Requirements
  by Dennis Baron (Former Head of English Department at UIUC)
  Represents the university's requirements to high school English teachers: "High school students read up to 2 million words a year, which seems like a lot until you consider that, on the average, college students encounter a million words a week in their lectures and reading. Clearly, course work in English should prepare high school students to deal with this vast increase in language processing. The study of language and literature through four years of high school English should provide the fundamental skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking that are necessary to succeed in college and later, in the workplace."
• Illinois Learning Standards for Writing
  Illinois State Board of Education
  "The ability to write clearly is essential to any person's effective communications. Students with high-level writing skills can produce documents that show planning and organization and can effectively convey the intended message and meaning. Clear writing is critical to employment and production in today's world."
• iTransfer.org
  Description of state-wide "communication course" requirements for students transferring from one Illinois institution to another: "The writing course sequence (1) develops awareness of the writing process; (2) provides inventional, organizational and editorial strategies; (3) stresses the variety of uses for writing; and (4) emphasizes critical skills in reading, thinking and writing. The writing course sequence must include production of documented, multi-source writing in one or more papers for a combined total of at least 2500 words in final version."
• Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition
  (Council of Writing Program Administrators)
  "This statement describes the common knowledge, skills, and attitudes sought by first-year composition programs in American postsecondary education. To some extent, we seek to regularize what can be expected to be taught in first-year composition; to this end the document is not merely a compilation or summary of what currently takes place."
• Composition Placement
  Collected here are some documents pertaining to the placement of students in Composition I courses.
  • Rhetoric Placement (Office of Instructional Resources)
    "Cutoff Scores, Credit Policies, and Messages for Fall 2003 Students."
  • Placement into Freshman Rhetoric courses(Freshman Rhetoric Program)
    "The purpose of the placement process is to match students with the course or course sequence most likely to benefit them. If you enter the university as a first-year student in Fall 2003 or later, we will use your ACT English subscore (or its SAT Verbal equivalent) to place you in the appropriate Rhetoric course."
  • ACT Assessment Writing Test
    "By offering the ACT Writing Test as an option, we are providing a flexible solution rather than imposing a single approach on all students and institutions."
  • Correspondence regarding placement into Composition I courses at the University of Illinois. Concerns impact of newly implemented placement procedures on "EOP students."
    • Memo from Peter Mortensen, Director of Freshman Rhetoric and Academic Writing Program to Jo Ann Hodges, Assistant Dean of College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
    • Memo II from Diane Steele, Coordinator of Placement and Proficiency Testing to Jo Ann Hodges, Assistant Dean of College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• The Writers' Workshop
  " [P]rovides free writing assistance for University of Illinoisstudents, faculty and staff from all disciplines and levels Sessions are interactive. Through close reading and questions, your consultant will help you express and articulate your ideas. Your consultant works with you at all stages of the writing process, from brainstorming to writing to revising. Sorry, no proofreading--the Workshop is funded as a teaching unit, not proofreading service."
• Writing Majors at UIUC
  • Requirements for Rhetoric Major
    The advanced rhetoric program permits a student to work in creative or professional writing.
  • Journalism Undergraduate Program (Department of Journalism)
  • Outcomes Assessment Plan for Department of Journalism
    Over the past several years, journalism faculty have had many discussions concerning desired learning outcomes. The faculty has debated whether to revise the curriculum for example, whether to add a public relations sequence or to merge the print and broadcast journalism sequences.
• Writing Across the Curriculum at UIUC
  "As most of us who work with WAC have learned, WAC programs have as much to do with transforming teaching and learning practices across the curriculum as they do with the teaching of writing per se. The WAC program at the University consists of an initiative to assist both faculty and teaching assistants with the teaching of writing."
• Writing Reports for General Engineering Senior Design Projects
  Description, requirements, and guidance for writing reports for senior design projects in General Engineering 342.
• Technical Writing for Fun and Profit
  "The average engineering student would rather go to the dentist and have root canal than write a technical report or a memo. This is unfortunate, as a large part of a working engineer's professional life is spent in writing technical communiqu s of one sort or another."