OBJECTIVE:

The objective of a communication component of a core curriculum is to enable the student to communicate effectively in clear and correct prose in a style appropriate to the subject, occasion, and audience.

 
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REQUIREMENTS:

1. New courses approved for the core curriculum must be non-advanced courses except for substantiated reasons justified and approved on a course by course basis.
    
2. The request must show how the course intends to meet the exemplary educational objectives, as set forth by the Coordinating Board. This shall be done by including a syllabus that addresses the appropriate objectives.
    
3. To meet Coordinating Board requirements that core courses be evaluated, requests for new core courses must present processes and procedures for evaluating course effectiveness in regard to appropriate objectives and must delineate how the evaluations will be employed in course development.
   
   Relevant guidelines derived from the CB's Criteria for Evaluation of Core Curricula appear below:
   
   1. How is the course consistent with the appropriate elements of the core curriculum component areas, intellectual competencies, and perspectives as expressed in "Core Curriculum: Assumptions and Defining Characteristics" adopted by the Board?
   2. How are the institution's educational goals and the exemplary educational objectives of the core curriculum recommended by the Board being achieved?
   3. What processes and procedures are being used to evaluate the course and its contribution to the core curriculum?
   4. How will the evaluation results be utilized to improve the course and its contribution to the core curriculum?
       
4. The practice of writing is the primary focus of core courses in the Communication category. Instruction in writing should not be limited to lectures about principles of writing or to written comments on student essays. Classroom instruction should include extended practice in the major elements of the composing process. The course must require at least 3,000 words of finished prose, that is, prose that has been revised in light of self, teacher, or peer critiques. All work done outside of class must be returned to the student prior to the end of the semester of term with the instructor's written evaluation of grammar, style and content.

 
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EXEMPLARY EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES:

1. To understand and demonstrate writing processes through invention, organization, drafting, revision, editing, and presentation.
    
2. To understand the importance of specifying audience and purpose and to select appropriate communication choices.
    
3. To understand and appropriately apply modes of expression, i.e., descriptive, expositive, narrative, scientific, and self-expressive, in written communication.
    
4. To understand and apply basic principles of critical thinking, problem solving, and technical proficiency in the development of exposition and argument in cooperative and/or interactive writing.
    
5. To develop the ability to research and write a documented paper.
    

 
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