The Council of Writing Program Administrators has offered a statement outlining the “writing knowledge, practices, and attitudes that undergraduate students develop in first-year composition, which at most schools is a required general education course or sequence of courses.” The statement includes a list of general outcomes associated with first-year composition, divided into the following categories: rhetorical knowledge; critical thinking, reading, and composing; and processes. In order to show constructive alignment in action in the composition classroom, this page provides an in-depth example of how three of the CWPA outcomes could be translated into a constructively aligned classroom experience.
Outcome: “Develop facility in responding to a variety of situations and contexts calling for purposeful shifts in voice, tone, level of formality, design, medium, and/or structure"
Classroom activity: To learn more about how different situations call for different rhetorical strategies, an instructor could present students with several texts that all discuss the same subject. For example, students could analyze a journal article about climate change, an article about climate change in a popular newspaper, and an instructional video designed for middle school students about climate change. Comparing and contrasting the rhetorical elements of these different works intended for different audiences would help students become more familiar with these concepts.
Assessment method: As an assessment method, students may be required to “translate” different texts into a new medium for a new audience. For example, they may adapt a journal article for a non-expert audience of their choice. This method of assessment would allow the instructor to evaluate how well the students understand audience and how well they are able to use rhetorical strategies to address certain situations.
Outcome: "Locate and evaluate (for credibility, sufficiency, accuracy, timeliness, bias and so on) primary and secondary research materials, including journal articles and essays, books, scholarly and professionally established and maintained databases or archives, and informal electronic networks and internet sources"
Classroom activity: An instructor could identify a topic and assign pairs of students to find a certain type of source about that topic. For example, one pair will search for a journal article about the topic, another pair will search for a book, another pair will search for an informal or popular article, etc.
Assessment method: One option for formally assessing this outcome could be an annotated bibliography in which students are required to find a certain number of sources on their chosen research topic. The students would be required to provide citations and a short summary of the sources, as well as evaluate the sources based on the criteria listed in the outcome (“credibility, sufficiency, accuracy, timeliness, bias”).
Outcome: "Reflect on the development of composing practices and how those practices influence their work"
Classroom activity: Teaching and learning activities associated with this outcome would include walking students through different parts of the writing process and having them try out strategies like outlining, concept mapping, or brainstorming with a classmate. This activity would give students the opportunity to learn about writing strategies and decide which ones might work best for them as they approach a writing assignment.
Assessment method: One assessment option for this objective could be a written reflection due in combination with a writing assignment. Students would be required to reflect on their writing process, including how they planned, researched, outlined, drafted, revised, and other steps, and they would also be asked to evaluate how well the strategies they used worked for them. The reflections would be assessed based on students’ level of understanding of the writing process.