Preliminary note: The following is a draft of a working document, posted here in order to become an object of discussion, re-thinking, and revision. It is not yet an official statement even by the Outcomes working group, and has not been proposed yet for adoption by CCCC, NCTE, WPA, or any other official professional organization. We strongly discourage any use or attribution of the following language that does not take great care to represent it accurately. Material contained in square brackets (that is, "[...]") represents notes made by Keith Rhodes about what the closing session of the workshop saw as the most pressing issues to be dealt with in working further on the draft.

CCCC '98 WORKSHOP:
OUTCOMES STATEMENT FOR FIRST-YEAR COMPOSITION [DRAFT]

Introduction

Rhetorical Knowledge

• recognize and write to a specified audience
• focus on a purpose
• adopt appropriate voice, tone, and level of formality
• recognize differences in discourse situations, responding appropriately to those different situations
• use discourse conventions appropriate to the purpose of the texts they write
• acquire the ability to treat the same data in multiple formats
• have a sense of what genres are
• know that different genres are appropriate to different kinds of rhetorical situations
• write within a range of genres.

• the main features of the writing in their fields
• the main uses of the writing in their fields
• the expectations of readers of writing in their fields

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing

• use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating
• understand the power of language and its uses
• learn the steps necessary to carry out a writing assignment or task, including locating, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources
• investigate, report, and document existing knowledge, as well as knowledge students develop themselves
• be rhetorically aware as readers, recognizing how writers adapt language for audience, situation, and purpose.

• writing as a thinking method as well as a communicative performance
• writing in response to assignments that require critical thinking as part of their writing
• writing in response to assignments that require critical reading as part of their writing

Processes

• be aware of the processes of writing--particularly that it may take multiple drafts to find a successful text
• understand the collaborative and social nature of those processes
• learn to critique their own and others' writing
• learn to balance the ability to rely on others with the responsibility of doing their own part
• understand that writing is a recursive process
• develop strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proof-reading texts, as appropriate within the development of a specific text.

• to save extensive editing for after their invention and development work has been done very completely
• to build final results in stages
• to review their work in collaborative peer groups for purposes other than editing

Knowledge of Conventions.

• develop knowledge of genre conventions ranging from structure and tone to mechanics and spelling
• acquire knowledge and conventions for different kinds of writing and occasions for writing
• practice appropriate means of documenting the knowledge they incorporate into their texts
• control such features as organizing, paragraphing, syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

• the ways in which their discipline differs from others in its conventions of usage and documentation
• how better outcomes in conventions actually can be achieved
• the main conventions that are valued by writers in their field, especially matters of format and documentation

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