Learning Outcomes

The learning outcomes listed below apply to all the courses taught in the University Writing Program and represent our conception of what students learn after completing any one of these courses.

A Deep Understanding of Rhetorical Situations

• Read, analyze, and evaluate arguments in context, constantly seeking truth through inquiry

• Write in rhetorically flexible ways that demonstrate awareness and insight into intended purpose, audience, and genre

An Ethical Lens for Communication

• Make judgments about the rhetorical actions that constitute honesty, accountability, tolerance, judgment, and fairness in any given rhetorical situation, including uses of AI platforms

• Apply frameworks for ethical communication, such as rhetorical virtues, linguistic justice, universal design for accessibility, and ecosystemic understandings of communication

A Process-Based Approach to Writing

• Understand writing as an iterative and reciprocal process requiring multiple steps and drafts

• Practice writing as a social and collaborative act, learning to seek, give, and receive feedback as essential parts of writing development

• Develop a flexible toolkit of strategies for generating, planning, drafting, sharing, revising, and editing

Effective Strategies for Scholarly and Popular Conversations

• Use research and information literacy tools to locate, read, evaluate, and synthesize information from research material, using Notre Dame’s library databases and other sources

• Enter and advance academic and public conversations in constructive and critical ways

• Practice ethical and conventional citation, avoiding plagiarism and adhering to a citation style such as MLA