Course Goals and Related Objectives
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EN 104 Outcomes
Goal #1 - Writing Process
Students will understand and use the processes of writing and revision as tools for analyzing
topics and evaluating their own writing.
Related Objectives
• Prewrite for each paper assignment.
• Produce and revise drafts for each paper assignment.
• Obtain audience feedback on each draft from instructor and/or peers.
• Maintain a portfolio or writing folder containing a "paper trail" for each submitted paper
(prewriting, drafts, peer feedback, final draft, grading remarks, or instructor feedback).
Goal #2 - Collaboration
Students will learn to collaborate productively.
Related Objectives
• Conference with course instructor and writing center tutors (if needed).
• Participate in peer feedback workshops (face-to-face or online), both giving helpful
audience advice on a peer's writing AND reading peer advice as well as determining
how that advice will be applied to a revision.
• During peer review sessions, focus feedback on content and organization.
Address style and grammar concerns in later drafts.
• Understand the difference between revision, editing, and proofreading and at which stage
in the writing process each is most productive.
• Develop revision strategies based on audience feedback on drafts.
Goal #3 - Rhetorical Strategies
Students will be exposed to a variety of rhetorical strategies and processes of analyzing;
they will also understand the advantages associated with composing in different print,
visual, and digital media.
Related Objectives
• Analyze assigned readings to distinguish facts from unsupported opinion,
to determine inferences, and to understand reader and writer biases.
• Understand the importance of shaping a message to achieve the desired impact on a particular audience.
• Analyze readings to determine how authors employ rhetorical strategies and rhetorical appeals.
• Analyze visual/digital texts and/or compose visual/digital texts, paying attention to
rhetorical strategies and rhetorical appeals.
Goal #4 - Purpose/Audience Awareness
Students will understand how to use writing strategies and processes to analyze and write about
issues aimed at different audiences and for different purposes.
Related Objectives
• Participate in a variety of "write-to-learn" exercises.
• Read a variety of texts and analyze how they appeal to different audiences for different purposes.
• Produce a variety of texts designed to appeal to different audiences for different purposes.
Goal #5 - Conventions
Students will understand their part in the university discourse community and how its
written conventions operate.
Related Objectives
• Understand the conventions of academic writing.
• Select the best evidence to develop a main claim and supporting claims.
• Present ideas in the most logical order to achieve each piece of writings purpose.
• Become familiar with the types of writing assignments students commonly encounter
across the curriculum, through daily work, class discussion, and the completion of
a variety of writing assignments.
Goal #6 - Argumentation
Students will understand and apply the elements of formal argumentation in writing;
will understand the differences between Aristotelian, Rogerian, and post-modern argumentation;
and will understand that various disciplines apply these principles in different ways.
Related Objectives
• Practice writing using Aristotelian elements of argumentation, such as premises,
deduction, logos, pathos, and ethos.
• Practice writing using Toulmin and post-modern elements of argumentation, such as
claims, warrants/assumptions, and reasons.
• Practice writing using Rogerian elements of argumentation, such as negotiating
and finding common ground.
• Analyze readings to determine effective or ineffective argumentation strategies.
• Respond to the opposition in each mode of argumentation.
• Create an arguable thesis statement and support it with relevant claims and evidence.
• Develop an argument that answers a research question and subsequently establishes an
original position in the debate surrounding the topic.
• Learn to recognize and avoid logical fallacies.
Goal #7 - Research
Students will learn to locate source material both in the library and online,
read and evaluate this material critically, analyze and summarize points of view
and assumptions, and synthesize sources in order to write extended papers incorporating
source material.
Related Objectives
• Understand the wealth of resources available in Gorgas Library and other libraries.
• Become familiar with and effectively use electronic databases.
• Understand the difference between primary and secondary sources and be able to use both.
• Learn to distinguish academic/scholarly sources from general/popular sources.
• Evaluate the credibility and reliability of all sources and the strengths and weaknesses
of opinions contained in those sources.
• Practice successful note-taking strategies that also record full reference information.
Goal #8 - Documentation and Citation
Students will be able to demonstrate the appropriate and ethical use of academic research,
understand that citation formats vary among disciplines, and use at least one format correctly.
Related Objectives
• Understand that different academic disciplines use different style manuals.
• Analyze, compare, and contrast at least two major citation formats.
• Accurately format a piece of writing using one of the learned citation formats.
• Analyze how research texts incorporate direct quotations, paraphrasing, and summarizing.
• Practice correct format for inserting short quotations and for setting off longer block quotations.
• Integrate quotations smoothly using signal phrases and correct punctuation, including
quotation marks, ellipsis marks, and brackets.
• Use and cite summaries, paraphrases, and quotations correctly.
• Document sources correctly in a Works Cited page or Bibliography.
Goal #9 - Metacognition
Students will become conscious of their own development as writers.
Related Objectives
• Comment in writing on reasons for revisions in different stages of essay drafts.
• Submit a cover letter or reflective analysis discussing a revised essay's strengths,
weaknesses, and the revision process, or submit such a letter for a final portfolio.
• Write in-class evaluations of peer review sessions.
