Area A: Foundations of Communication

Public Speaking

Students will:

• practice speaking as a public art of citizenship, using key concepts from the rhetorical tradition to guide the creation and assessment of speeches and to inform civic judgment.
• identify and evaluate ethical issues in public address, including plagiarism and gender and cultural stereotyping, and exhibit good ethos as speakers and listeners.
• analyze and construct cogent and well-structured arguments, including clear thesis statements, coherent organization, and sound reasoning.
• identify, use, and properly cite credible evidence.
• demonstrate facility in multiple genres of public discourse and in the adaptation of argument to their audiences.
• perform extemporaneous speaking including effective verbal and nonverbal delivery appropriate to the subject, context and audience.

Rhetoric and Composition

Students will develop competence in these areas:

• Critical analysis of academic discourse: Students critically analyze linguistic and rhetorical strategies used in long and complex texts from a variety of genres, subjects, and fields.
• Integrating multiple academic sources: Students incorporate multiple texts of length and complexity within a unified argumentative essay, addressing connections and differences among them.
• Academic research: Students develop sophisticated research questions and compose substantial arguments in response to those questions, incorporating extensive independent library research and demonstrating mastery of standard academic documentation modes.
• Style: Students edit their own prose to achieve a clear and mature writing style in keeping with the conventions of academic and/or professional discourse.
• Revision: Students develop revision strategies for extending and enriching early drafts and for producing polished advanced academic writing.