Department of English Language and Literature : Composition Learning Outcomes

Since Composition II proceeds from and expands upon Composition I, the objectives of the two-semester sequence are designed to demonstrate this progression and expansion.  Composition I objectives are assumed to be carried forward into Composition II.

• Understand that successful writing has a clear purpose, an idea that controls the focus of the paper.  This controlling idea is generally called the thesis.
• Understand that the purpose controls and shapes the organization and development of a written piece and that purpose is reflected in the thesis.
• Consider the expectations of the audience for whom they are writing and use this information to communicate effectively.

Additionally, Composition II students should be able to:

• recognize how the rhetorical occasion shapes the writing.

Composition I students should be able to:

• Make appropriate writing decisions about organization based on consideration of the audience, purpose, and genre. 
• Use specific techniques for connecting ideas within and across paragraphs in order to help the reader see how ideas are related.
• Recognize genres as ways of organizing writing that makes sense to particular communities of readers.
• Use specific writing techniques and strategies for organization and arrangement such as:
  • thesis statement
  • topic sentences
  • deductive and inductive methods of development
  • unified and purposeful content
  • transitions
  • parallelism, agreement, and effective repetition

• Use various arrangements to more effectively achieve the purpose of a piece through its structure.
• Synthesize information and integrate sources in a sophisticated discussion.
• Recognize the rules of evidence and ways for referring sources implicit in any genre and be able to reproduce them.

Composition I students should be able to:

• Make writing decisions about the development based on the audience, the context, and the purpose of the writing.
• Support the main idea of a writing project fully and persuasively. In an expository essay this means identifying well-chosen reasons for believing that your thesis is true and explaining the reasons fully enough so that a reader will understand them.
• Develop paragraphs whose topic sentence or main ideas are supported with explanations, descriptions, and examples.
• Distinguish inference from evidence and explain what evidence the writer’s inferences are based on.
• Tell when a statement requires support.
• Identify what kind of information would constitute support in a specific rhetorical situation and present that type of information for support clearly, whether it is an example, experimental data, or the testimony of someone knowledgeable about the subject.
• Identify whatever assumptions underlie the connecting of evidence with claims.  That is, students should be able to see what a person would have to believe in order for the evidence to prove a point.  Once any assumptions that have been made are identified, students should be able to judge their reasonableness, decide whether the situation calls for making them explicit and defending them, and back them up if it will further the purpose of the writing
• Distinguish levels of specificity and decide how specific to be, given the audience, context, and purpose.
• Recognize the usefulness of and, when appropriate, use these common methods of development: example or illustration, comparison and contrast, classification, definition, analysis (including analysis of cause and effect and of problem and solution), and synthesis.
• Understand the following concepts related to development and use them appropriately: inference, evidence, claim, support, concession, and rebuttal.

Additionally, Composition II students should be able to:

• Expand their ability to produce support for a statement. 
• Select and use evidence appropriate to topic, audience, and occasion.
• Demonstrate control of the authority and credibility of an argument.
• Begin to participate in the mission of a university to produce new knowledge.

Composition I students should be able to:

• Write complete and concise sentences, with sentence components arranged in a logical order.
• Combine ideas effectively, using the principles of coordination and subordination to write compound and complex sentences, as appropriate to the writing situation.
• Choose precise and effective vocabulary (diction), appropriate to the context of the writing task.
• Demonstrate proficiency in writing standard English, including usage, punctuation, mechanics, and spelling.
• Develop the skills of editing and proofreading to present a polished version of your work to an audience.
• Understand the concept that matters of grammar and style are inextricably linked to your ability to communicate ideas effectively to an audience.

• Know the conventions well enough to understand when a departure is rhetorically effective.
• Understand that matters of grammar and style are conventional and carry implicit social values
• Recognize and use rhetorical devices such as metaphor, simile, analogy, parallel structure, and effective repetition.

Composition I students should be able to:

• Show an understanding of reading material by writing a clear summary of it, identifying its main points and the information supporting those main points.
• Evaluate the credibility of a text by looking at the author, the author's assumptions, when and where the text was published, and the context in which it was published (e.g., in a scholarly journal, a popular magazine, a collection of excerpted works).
• Respond to the content of a reading, not only on a personal level, but also on a more objective, critical, analytical level.
• Read and analyze instructions for any writing task you are given so that you can explore and understand the purpose of a writing task and set goals for it.

Additionally, Composition II students should be able to:

• Read complex information reflectively and incorporate it into a text.
• Identify and analyze the rhetorical strategies an author uses to produce meaning effectively.

• Locate, evaluate, and use research materials, particularly from the University of Toledo’s Carlson Library.
• Understand the differences among reference materials such as dictionaries and encyclopedias, general sources, scholarly sources (especially as organized by fields of study), and information found on the web.
• Understand the concept of a research database and how it works and be able to access Carlson Library's databases from the library's homepage.
• Use author, title, subject and key word searches for locating reference and research materials using Carlson Library's UTMOST and OhioLINK.
• Use specific skills in limiting searches to locate pertinent, appropriate materials, such as using abstracts, bibliographies, and setting time parameters.
• Evaluate information, especially from the web.
• Develop and use skills in note-taking, paraphrasing, and using direct quotations.
• Understand the purpose of documentation, when documentation is needed, how to avoid plagiarism, and how to correctly use the MLA documentation method.

Additionally, Composition II students should be able to:

• Understand and demonstrate how your work fits in with the work of others who have written on the same topic.
• Learn to discriminate between different types of data and kinds of evidence and select that which are appropriate to topic, audience, and occasion.
• Locate and use scholarly sources to produce new arguments.
• Locate and demonstrate the scholarly value of web sources.
• Provide citations in at least two conventional formats.
• Write an effective endnote.