W Course Outcomes and Goals

The University encourages all professors to specify learning outcomes for their courses.  Outcomes clarify for students and teachers alike what students are expected to learn in any particular course.  While different W courses will have specific requirements that are unique to their disciplinary contexts, it is still possible to clarify what W courses should have in common and what students in any W course ought to be expected to do upon completion.  For more, see W Course Requirements  

Students taking a W course at CSU Fresno or its upper-division writing exam (UDWE) are expected to write at a level befitting the advanced education of a CSU graduate.  Students meeting the University’s graduation writing requirement should be able to use writing to ask intelligent questions about the subject in question, design and determine complex rhetorical goals and audiences, and construct a clear, supported explanation of one’s ideas and positions.  The following student learning outcomes are offered to help faculty design effective W course curricula and to communicate to students what any W course will ask them to do.

  Any W course at CSU Fresno should ask students to    

1. Identify and develop clear purposes for writing varied kinds of documents, analyzing purposes and audiences to make decisions about document content, structure, and style

2. Produce clear, coherent, well-organized prose for public and disciplinary audiences

3. Develop and use relevant strategies for generating, drafting, and revising expository writing

4. Explain, develop, analyze, and criticize ideas clearly and effectively

5. Find, evaluate, and use source material, both primary and secondary, appropriate to specific writing tasks

6. Work collaboratively to evaluate each other’s written work, as is common in most professional contexts, including peer critique to revise writing and thinking to accomplish rhetorical goals

7. Demonstrate knowledge of the rhetorical conventions appropriate to the discourse used in the discipline of study, including standards for format, citation, and style

8. Edit their own writing to reflect the conventions of standardized written English

Department-specific outcomes to be completed by offering department (see your department for specifics)

This page is sponsored and maintained by the Subcommittee on Writing Competency.  If you have questions about 

W courses and do not find the answers below, please contact the Subcommittee Chair.

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