Undergraduate students at Calvin University fulfill part of the Rhetoric Across the Curriculum requirement in their home department. Academic departments internally designate courses in their major curriculum (that is, required courses that carry the departmental prefix) as rhetoric intensive. Designating courses as rhetoric intensive ensures that students receive rhetorical instruction in the discipline, from scholars and practitioners in that discipline, and such courses serve as a locus for assessment. When departments consider which courses should be designated, they should begin by identifying critical rhetorical skills and practices in the discipline: which genres and practices characterize effective communication in the discipline? In which courses do students encounter these genres and practices?

Rhetoric encompasses speaking, writing, visual design, and information literacy. Rhetorical products are often multimodal, with these forms of rhetoric working together to meet the demands of a rhetorical situation. For rhetoric-intensive courses, the nature of the discipline should guide decisions about the proportion of written to oral to visual rhetoric as well as the principal information literacy practices. The Rhetoric Across the Curriculum program strongly encourages rhetoric-intensive courses to address multiple forms of rhetoric and to emphasize multimodal assignments.

Rhetoric-Intensive Course Features

Courses designated by the department as rhetoric intensive have these characteristics:

  • Students produce at least 3,000 words of revised prose, or the oral equivalent of about twenty minutes, across one or more major assignments.  
  • Faculty teach (not simply assign) writing, speaking, design, and/or information literacy skills, devoting the majority of two–three class periods to explicit instruction and/or practice.
  • Students produce multiple drafts of the major rhetorical assignment(s) and revise their work; faculty and peers give feedback on early drafts as part of the revision process.
  • The instructor seeks support from at least one of these resources: Rhetoric Center class workshops, special consultations, or course fellows; Rhetoric Across the Curriculum director and committee member consultations; or Hekman Library workshops, instructional librarian consultations, or course presentations.
  • At least 25% of the final course grade is based on major rhetorical assignments.
  • The faculty member reports assessment data using university-wide rubric categories.

Rhetoric Intensive Syllabus Features

When they teach rhetoric-intensive courses, faculty should plan for at least 150–200 minutes of rhetorical instruction throughout the term. The course syllabus should also have these clearly identifiable features:

  • Rhetorical outcome(s) included in the student leaning outcomes for the course.
  • Descriptions of each of the major rhetorical assignments; descriptions should include the word and/or minute count as well as their contribution to the final course grade.
  • The Rhetoric Center Syllabus Blurb: The Rhetoric Center provides free assistance for all students as they plan, compose, and revise writing, speaking, design, and research projects. You can work with a trained peer consultant develop ideas and content, to work on organization and structure, to receive feedback from an attentive audience, and to work on polishing final products. You can schedule an appointment online, and drop-in appointments may be available.

Explicit Instruction and Practice

Faculty are encouraged to consult with the Rhetoric Program Director about specific pedagogical strategies for their disciplines and assignments. Class activities for signature assignments may include generating questions about the assignment, discussing evaluation criteria, guiding students as they construct ideas and arguments, modeling a component of the assignment (a thesis statement, topic sentence, organizational structure) as students practice with their own topic, analyzing sample assignments, and sharing and critiquing drafts in pairs or small groups.

Revision and Feedback

Revision is central to successful rhetorical products, so students are required to revise their work through a series of drafts. Faculty are encouraged to offer their most substantial feedback at the draft stage, when that feedback can be incorporated, rather than at the final stage; they are also encouraged to develop a schedule that allows time for feedback and revision and a grading system that rewards revision.  

Assessment

Assessment criteria should align with specific assignments in specific disciplines. The Rhetoric Program has established common assessment categories and levels, and departments should characterize each level—that is, fill in the boxes—for rhetoric-intensive courses and signature assignments. Departments report performance data using the common categories and levels.

Annual Reporting Process

At the end of the term, rhetoric-intensive course instructors will report on student performance using an online form. Instructors should be prepared to provide these items:

  • Course syllabus;
  • Assignment sheets for the major writing and/or speaking assignment(s);
  • The rubrics or other materials used to assess the assignments;
  • Assessment results reporting student performance on the rubric categories; instructors report simply how many students performed at the basic, developing, or competent level.