University Core Curriculum Objectives
Supported by the Rhetoric and Composition Program

As is written in the University Core Curriculum: A Guidebook for Students and Faculty Advisors:

The UCC’s goals focus on four areas: The Mind (enhancement of cognitive abilities), The Self (enhancement of individual development), The World (enhancement of cultural and natural awareness), and The Synthesis (the integration and application of knowledge). These are then subdivided into 13 smaller objectives concerned with oral and written communication, mathematics, critical thinking, information processing, ethics, the arts, health and lifestyle, history, individual development and social behavior, science, western culture, global communities, and inter-disciplinary studies. (1)

English 101 and 201 are designed to support the first of these areas, The Mind, and the first of the smaller objectives, A1: The ability to communicate effectively, listed below.

A. The Mind: Enhancement of Cognitive Abilities

A1. The ability to communicate effectively

Students should be able to write clear, concise, and coherent prose in both expository and persuasive modes. They should be able to speak clearly, effectively, and persuasively in both formal and informal circumstances.

Philosophy and Objectives of the Rhetoric and Composition Program

Beyond the specific focus areas and objectives of the University Core Curriculum, the English Department has developed fifteen additional and related objectives for its three courses in rhetoric and composition. Upon completion of these courses, students should have developed acceptable understanding of and competency in the following areas.

1. Understanding rhetoric
2. Reading critically
3. Developing a composing technique
4. Developing the skills, attitudes, and character of a critical thinker
5. Defining a problem or issue
6. Developing an awareness of language
7. Discovering one's own ideas
8. Discovering and dealing with the thoughts of others
9. Testing and evaluating ideas
10. Focusing writing
11. Organizing writing
12. Developing writing
13. Revising writing
14. Mastering documentation and bibliography skills
15. Using standard written English effectively

Each area, however, demands continual reinforcement in other courses throughout the university curriculum. Expanded descriptions of these objectives and the coordination of these objectives among English 100, 101, and 201 are listed below.

Expanded Descriptions of Objectives

1. Understanding rhetoric: Students should be introduced to rhetoric and understand the dramatic nature of learning and communication; therefore, students should practice reading, writing, reflection, and discussion as inquiry and in a variety of situations.
2. Reading critically: Students should learn to analyze the writing of others, noting focus, arrangement, logical development, vocabulary, and style. Students should also learn to acknowledge how their own experiences and attitudes shape their reading responses.
3. Developing a composing technique: Students should learn to access a full range of writing strategies and tools during various phases of their individual composing processes to help them discover and develop their particular writing styles.
4. Developing the skills, attitudes, and character of a critical thinker: Students should be introduced to the process of thinking critically, recognize the value of such attitudes as humility, awareness of the limits of one's knowledge, and healthy skepticism, and come to see that these factors shape and define their characters.
5. Defining a problem or issue: Students should understand not only how to limit and focus a topic, but how the process of defining a question helps shape its answers. They should recognize the role of intention, context, and audience in defining issues.
6. Developing an awareness of language: Students should come to understand that language is a tool for discovering, as well as for communicating, ideas. They should recognize the complex ways in which language shapes thinking, and learn to use it for various rhetorical purposes.
7. Discovering one's own ideas: Students should learn how such devices as journals, brainstorming, and grids serve as invention tools that can help them identify ideas. In particular, they should discover the heuristic value of writing and revising, and the collaborative nature of knowledge.
8. Discovering and dealing with the thoughts of others:  Through research, and through an introduction to the Library's principal resources, students should learn to seek out and consider facts and opinions beyond their own experience. They should learn the difference between primary and secondary evidence, and should be introduced to the fundamentals of both deductive and inductive analysis of source materials. They should also learn to incorporate research into their own writing by using sources sparingly, representing them accurately, and acknowledging them carefully.
9. Testing and evaluating ideas:  In addition to some understanding of the most common logical fallacies, especially as they are considered within a rhetorical context, students must also learn to distinguish reports from viewpoints, and to judge the relative merits of each. They should learn how an idea's context (its speaker, audience, and immediate situation) affects its merit. Most important, they should learn to identify and evaluate the hidden assumptions underlying their own ideas as well as those of others.
10. Focusing writing: Students should learn to focus their essays upon a central idea or thesis. They should also learn the role a thesis can play in setting up readers' expectations about an essay's development and organization.
11. Organizing writing: Students should learn the most effective strategies for organizing expository and persuasive writing. They should learn the nature and value of a controlling thesis, and of the transitional devices that can tie an essay's development to it.
12. Developing writing:  Students should learn to develop paragraphs that are clear and unified, and that support their thesis with sufficient evidence. They should learn to assess and choose the most effective kinds of evidence for various writing situations.
13. Revising writing: Students should learn to take a reader's perspective when assessing their own writing. They should learn to create effective introductions and conclusions, and should know how to revise for substantive as well as stylistic matters.
14. Mastering documentation and bibliography skills:  Students should learn how to incorporate quotations and paraphrases into their own writing. They should also learn the appropriate format for parenthetical documentation and bibliographies.
15. Using standard written English effectively: Students should demonstrate their ability to use effectively the conventions of spelling, punctuation, syntax, and usage.

Coordination of Objectives for English, 100, 101, and 201

To be Emphasized in English 100

• Understanding rhetoric
• Reading critically
• Developing a composing technique
• Developing the skills, attitudes, and character of a critical thinker
• Focusing writing
• Developing writing
• Organizing writing
• Using standard written English effectively

To be Emphasized in English 101

• Developing a composing technique
• Developing the skills, attitudes, and character of a critical thinker
• Defining a problem or issue
• Developing an awareness of language
• Discovering one's own ideas
• Discovering and dealing with the thoughts of others
• Testing and evaluating ideas
• Using standard written English effectively

To be Emphasized in English 201

• Developing a composing technique
• Discovering and dealing with the thoughts of others
• Testing and evaluating ideas
• Organizing writing
• Developing writing
• Revising writing
• Mastering documentation and bibliography skills
• Using standard written English effectively

College Achievement Program

The University of Southern Indiana’s College Achievement Program (CAP) is managed by the Office of Continuing Education. CAP is a cooperative program between USI and participating high schools which allows high school students to take English 101: Rhetoric and Composition I: Critical Thinking in their own high schools. These sections of English 101 are taught by qualified high school English faculty selected by the English Department. High school students who would like to register for CAP English 101 will take the Rhetoric and Composition Placement Exam during the final weeks of their junior year or during first or second week of their senior year. These exams will be administered by a the CAP instructor and will be evaluated by members of the USI English faculty to ensure that students have the prerequisite skills for English 101. The Director of Composition or the English Department Chair will notify CAP instructors of their students’ scores, and CAP instructors may write to the Director or Chair to appeal the results of these scores.