AREA A - WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

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Area Requirements . All courses certified for Written Communication must meet all of the following criteria in addition to the criteria specified for all General Education courses (pages 6-8). Courses in Written Communication should consciously aim to convey to students the goals and guidelines articulated in CSUSM's Mission Statement.

1. Goals

A passing grade signifies that the student is a capable college-level writer and reader of English. The goals of the course are to develop:

• A writing style, clear and correct, able to give form and coherence to complex ideas and feelings;
• Students' understanding of the writing process and the goals, dynamics, and genres of written communication, with special attention to the nature of writing at the university;
• Students will understand and appreciate a range of writing styles and forms of eloquence.
• Students' rhetorical sophistication;
• College level reading abilities; and
• Students' analytical and imaginative faculties.

2. Objectives

Students shall achieve the ability to write complete writings which demonstrate minimum proficiency in all of the following:

• Clear and effective communication of meaning. Writings will have a readily identifiable focus and will be effectively tailored to a particular audience and purpose; argumentative writings will state their thesis clearly and show an awareness, implied or stated, of some opposing point of view.
• The ability to perform effectively the essential steps of the research writing process (pre-writing, organizing, composing, revising, and editing).
• The ability to explain, analyze, develop, and criticize ideas effectively.
• Effective use within their own writings of research and of supporting material drawn from reading or other sources.
• Effective organization within the paragraph and the written word;
• Accuracy, variety, and clarity of sentences.
• Appropriate diction.
• Competent handling of conventional mechanics (e.g. punctuation, spelling, reference, agreement).

3. Course Requirements

Writing. Writing assignments shall give students repeated practice in pre-writing, organizing, writing, revising, and editing. The number of writing assignments and their careful sequencing are as important as the total number of words written. Eight to ten essays totaling a minimum of 8000 words are required. This minimum requirement excludes journal writing, quizzes, or other informal or brief assignments. Although the majority of papers will be written out of class, at least three essays shall be written in class. Students shall receive frequent evaluations from the instruction.

Reading. Reading for the course will be extensive and intensive and will be linked to the division or College offering the course. It shall include useful models of writing for academic, general, and special audiences.

Final exam. A common essay final shall count 20 percent toward the course grade. A single university-wide final will be developed each semester.

Tutoring. At the discretion of the university or the instructor, students may be required to attend tutoring sessions as a corequisite to completing the course.

Class size. Classes shall be limited to 22 students. It is not acceptable to teach larger classes and use readers or teaching assistants for paper grading or discussion sections.

Grading. A/B/C/No Credit.

Technology and Information Literacy. Courses approved for Written Communication shall include an assessable Information and Computer Literacy component that will require students to develop an understanding of the core information sources and literature of the discipline.

Prerequisites. Passage of the English Proficiency Test (EPT); or passage of an approved substitute course for the EPT.

4. Evaluation and Assessment

Student learning shall be measured by the common final exam, performance on the Writing Skills Test, and by direct student surveys.

Common final exam. Students shall be tested by means of a final essay examination, to count 20 percent toward the course grade. A single examination will be developed by a committee established by a Committee to include representatives of all departments offering courses fulfilling this requirement. All faculty members teaching individual sections will grade the examinations under controlled conditions.

Assignments. Student progress will also be evaluated throughout the semester by grades and comments on student essays.

Guidelines. Any department offering a course to meet the requirement shall for each such course write detailed course guidelines in accordance with the criteria above. These guidelines shall be submitted to the Academic disciplines offering the course and distributed each semester to all faculty members teaching that course.

5. Faculty Qualifications

Minimum faculty qualifications shall include the following or their equivalent:

• Substantial experience teaching writing at the baccalaureate level,
• Advanced training in written communication; and
• For foreign student sections, substantial formal training and experience in teaching English composition to speakers of other languages.
• Teaching associates shall be allowed to teach the course only after training and under the close supervision of a composition expert.

Courses will be assigned a librarian as a resource person to facilitate the information literacy and library use components.