General Education Area "W" - Written and Oral Communication Skills
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General Education Curriculum
As approved by the Faculty Senate on 10/22/97

Procedure

The General Education Committee will establish and maintain a list of courses designated as "writing intensive." Departments and Colleges may then require students to take courses from this list to satisfy the General Education requirement in Written and Oral Communication Skills.

Curriculum Standard: Written Skills

Each student must take ENL101 and ENL102. In addition, each student must complete at least one writing intensive course (three credits) before their senior year.

Definition and Criteria for Writing Intensive Courses

This will be the basis for acceptance in the General Education Committee's list of authorized courses for this area:

• 1. Assigned writing should have as its primary goal increased understanding of, and ability to communicate clearly, some content matter of the course. Different kinds of writing could be used to achieve these ends including journals, paraphrasing, short essays, reports, graded formal essays, etc. that emphasize a range of learning processes.
• 2. A number of written assignments should be given and spread over the semester, as opposed to a single end-of-term paper. Assignments should require successive revisions of a single paper or other assignment.
• 3. A suggestion of the writer's audience and purpose for writing should be included in the assignments. If practical, different assignments might have different purposes and audiences. The instructor should introduce and then encourage students to learn the communicative rituals and conventions of a discipline so that they learn to enter the conversation within the field, and become adept at its common genres of expression. The instructor should not be the sole audience for a writing assignment.
• 4. Faculty should provide models and examples of effective writing. Evaluative criteria (basis for course grade) should be targeted specifically toward the purposes of writing assignments.

Oral Communication: Curriculum Standard and Procedure

Each student must complete at least two formal oral presentations as part of one or more courses designated by the student's Major department from the established list of courses that incorporate a requirement of an oral presentation. Departments may offer courses or components of courses themselves, or may designate such courses offered by other departments. The General Education Committee will establish a list of courses that include oral presentations as requirements. To qualify, a course must require an oral presentation by each individual student based on some prior work.