Workshop G: Creating a W.O.V.E.N. Curriculum: Composing Means More than Writing – RM 117

Rebecca Burnett, Georgia Institute of Technology

As a discipline, we’ve moved beyond first-year writing courses that focus on five-paragraph essays to encourage not only personal narratives but also argument and critique. And we’ve moved beyond upper-level business, professional, and technical communication courses that focus on formulaic memos, proposals, and reports to courses that focus on rhetorical contingencies and documents for actual clients shaped by unique situations. But our students and work live in worlds surrounded by more than printed artifacts and formal presentations. This workshop session encourages a WOVEN approach. What’s WOVEN? Written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal communication.

A WOVEN approach to both first-year and upper-level courses can be implemented in a single classroom or in a campus-wide communication-across-the-curriculum program. This multi-modal approach is rhetorical, explaining the integration of composing, interpreting, and using written, oral, visual, and nonverbal communication. During the workshop, participants will be able to address both classroom and programmatic concerns:

Classroom concerns

• Developing activities and assignments that have a WOVEN focus
• Adapting and creating pedagogies that engage students in WOVEN activities
• Balancing teaching in classrooms and computer labs
• Extending assignment and course assessment/evaluation to include all WOVEN activities and assignments

Programmatic concerns

• Implementing institutional and perhaps system-wide changes in course goals, objectives, and outcomes for writing and communication courses
• Coordinating with others on campus who require writing and communication courses
• Designing initial and on-going professional development support for TAs and faculty
• Extending programmatic assessment/evaluation to include a WOVEN perspective

In this workshop session, participants will also learn about the innovative communication- across-the-curriculum WOVE initiatives at Iowa State University (in place since 1999), see highlights of the new WOVEN initiative at Georgia Tech, and learn about ways to create a WOVEN class or curriculum at their own institution.

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Rebecca's Presentation at an Assessment Symposium on the limits --to say nothing of the illogic-- of rubrics:

http://casymposium.blogspot.com/2007/10/100-145-restrict-rubrics-to-regain.html