Writing Attentive (WA)
Effective communication is the foundation of a liberal arts education. Good writing involves good thinking. Writing is rarely a spontaneous act but involves choosing the most effective forms, planning, drafting, and revising, an understanding of one's audience, and knowledge of concepts as well as of the mechanics of writing.

Goals

Writing attentive courses strengthen the connection between knowledge of a subject and effective writing by assigning diverse writing tasks and providing opportunities for practice and improvement.

Explain how the course meets the goals of the Writing Attentive requirement.

Course Criteria

A course must meet the following criteria in order to be designated as fulfilling the Writing Attentive requirement.
  1. Courses must provide students with targeted feedback across multiple assignments on the form of their writing as well as its content.

    Explain how the course meets this criterion.

  2. Courses must include classroom instruction introducing good writing strategies for all stages of writing as appropriate; for example, brainstorming, thesis development, drafting, revision, and proofreading.

    Explain how the course meets this criterion.

  3. Courses must include various types of writing assignments appropriate to the discipline, such as summaries, responses, annotated bibliographies, syntheses, policy reviews, lab reports, etc., to allow students to develop effective writing strategies.

    Explain how the course meets this criterion.

Learning Outcomes

Students will meet all of the following learning outcomes.
  1. Students will be able to implement strategies for invention, thesis development, drafting, and revision.

    Explain how the course meets this learning outcome.

  2. Students will be able to utilize different genres (such as summaries, responses, annotated bibliographies, syntheses, policy reviews, lab reports, posters, etc.) that are appropriate to a discipline or field.

    Explain how the course meets this learning outcome.

  3. Students will be able to apply the targeted feedback they receive from their instructor on one assignment to the next assignment.

    Explain how the course meets this learning outcome.