About+the+Outcomes+and+Writing+at+Drexel

// Drexel Writing Center, 7/21/09, 11/22/09, 1/15/10, 2/3/10, 2/15/10, 2/18/10 //
 * Draft: Drexel University Reading and Writing Student Learning Outcomes**

The Drexel University Reading and Writing Student Learning Outcomes assume that reading and writing are integral components of successful communication. Reading is generally receptive communication and writing is generally expressive communication, but one skill cannot be fully separated from the other. When students read well, they construct meaning, ask questions of texts and assumptions, and form a thoughtful relationship with the ideas the texts offer. When student write well, they ask questions of their own texts and assumptions, form thoughtful relationships with their own ideas, and bring the voices of others (in the shape of research reading/sources) into the conversation that they orchestrate. For this reason, the SLOs listed in this wiki articulate both reading and writing goals.

When we speak of “writing,” we speak broadly of communication: writing, as we define it, comprises all means of written communication from traditional linear texts to multi-media compositions and genre-specific writing such as lab reports, memos, and group reports.

The SLOs essentially break into two parts: Reading and Writing are cumulative skills; they cannot be taught once and then forgotten. For this reason, we encourage faculty across Drexel to see the skills of reading and writing as being introduced in the Freshman Writing Program Sequence (ENG 101-103, 105), but necessarily reinforced at every level of the student’s academic career. The goal of the Freshman Writing Program is to introduce the skills that students will build on throughout their time at Drexel. The goal of the Writing Intensive (WI) courses that follow is to enhance the skills introduced in freshman year, and to help students to use the general writing skills that they learned as freshman to create successful discipline-specific writing.
 * 1) the Reading and Writing Process, and
 * 2) the way that this process is used to create discipline-specific texts.