Communications Competencies
Reading, Speaking, and Writing
Prepared by the Competencies Task Force of CEI—The North Carolina Conference of English Instructors
August 11, 1995

Writing Competencies
with Acquisition and Assessment Strategies

The student will become competent in composition, analysis, language, research, and presentation.
  1. Composition Competencies
    The student will
    1. Use a process of writing that includes independent and collaborative prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing to produce unified, coherent, and well-developed paragraphs and essays that support the expressed or implied controlling idea.
    2. Write under time constraints imposed by school and workplace situations.

    1. Acquisition Strategies
      The student will
      1. Respond appropriately to a variety of specific writing tasks, some out-of-class assignments, and some timed, in-class assignments.
      2. Engage in a variety of prewriting activities (e.g., brainstorming, listing, freewriting, journal keeping, clustering) as a group member before proceeding to individual prewriting in order to develop both confidence and competency in the beginning stages of the composing process.
      3. Work through the stages of the writing process both in groups and individually to develop ideas, select appropriate supporting details, organize those details, write drafts, edit, and complete a final product.
      4. Read high-quality essays and identify both the controlling idea and the organizational methods used to provide support.
      5. Write essays demonstrating command of specific organizational strategies, i.e., modes of discourse.
      6. Share writing samples through both oral and written presentations.

    2. Assessment Strategies
      The instructor will
      1. Evaluate both the student's writing process and the final product—to include out-of-class and timed in-class assignments.
      2. Use student self-assessment rubrics.
      3. Use peer evaluation rubrics.
      4. Score holistically using trained faculty teams.
      5. Encourage holistic scoring by trained peers.
      6. Use collaborative, small-group peer assessment.
      7. Administer objective and essay exams to demonstrate student command of course material.
      8. Publish class "books" of student writing.
      9. Schedule instructor-student conferences.
      10. Evaluate portfolios of student writing.

  2. Analysis Competencies
    The student will
    1. Explore attitudes and beliefs in writing, reading, and speaking, valuing cultural diversity.
    2. Demonstrate critical thinking/problem solving skills.
    3. Apply techniques of analysis, interpretation, and evaluation to works of literature and to workplace documents and situations.

    1. Acquisition Strategies
      The student will
      1. Complete writing and research tasks which require critical thinking, i.e., planning and executing writing projects individually and in groups.
      2. Generate ideas through group brainstorming to help students become aware of and use problem-solving skills.
      3. Use reading strategies such as previewing, annotating, note taking, and outlining.
      4. Read selections representing various cultures and explore different value/belief systems.
      5. Discuss issues concerning writer's voice, point of view, tone, and audience.
      6. Compare/contrast both in writing and in discussion different attitudes and values encountered through readings.
      7. Identify techniques used to interpret literature, such as character analysis, and apply these techniques in writing and discussion.
      8. Apply critical skill used in literary analysis to analytical techniques that students use in everyday situations, including the workplace.

    2. Assessment Strategies
      The instructor will
      1. Evaluate student analytical work.
      2. Use student self-assessment. Set up instructor/student collaboration to establish evaluation criteria.
      3. Encourage peer evaluation in small groups using established evaluation criteria.
      4. Have class members evaluate group or individual projects using established evaluation criteria.

  3. Language Competencies
    The student will
    1. Practice standard usage in oral and written communications, including conventions of grammar, punctuation, mechanics, spelling, diction, and sentence structure.
    2. Use appropriate diction, tone, voice, point of view, and figurative language, depending upon audience and purpose.

    1. Acquisition Strategies
      The student will
      1. Write sentences using prescribed sentence patterns.
      2. Edit faulty sentences to correct usage errors.
      3. Confer with instructor and revise works in process for appropriate language use.
      4. Define the audience for a given written work.
      5. Create an audience analysis checklist.
      6. Define various tones and points of view.
      7. Analyze sentences, paragraphs, and whole works to identify tone and point of view.
      8. Produce written materials that demonstrate a variety of tones and figurative language.
      9. Demonstrate standard usage in group and class discussions and in oral presentations.

    2. Assessment Strategies
      The instructor will
      1. Administer pretest and posttest on standard usage.
      2. Administer standardized tests.
      3. Evaluate student writing in process.
      4. Use student self-assessment rubrics.
      5. Use peer evaluation rubrics.
      6. Score holistically using trained faculty teams.
      7. Encourage holistic scoring by trained peers.
      8. Use small-group peer assessments.
      9. Administer objective and essay exams.
      10. Publish class "books" of student writing.
      11. Schedule instructor-student conferences.
      12. Evaluate portfolios of student writing.

  4. Research Competencies
    The student will
    1. Use a research process that includes selecting a topic and gathering information from a variety of primary and secondary sources: oral, text, and electronic.
    2. Summarize, paraphrase, interpret, and synthesize information from a variety of primary and secondary sources.
    3. Incorporate relevant research findings into essays or reports, documenting them appropriately to avoid plagiarism.

    1. Acquisition Strategies
      The student will
      1. Tailor topics to suit the assigned scope of researched writing projects.
      2. Identify the kind of questions that should be answered to write well on a topic.
      3. Identify potential kinds and sources of information needed to write well on a given topic.
      4. Produce bibliographies in accordance with a required style sheet.
      5. Justify the inclusion of particular sources on a bibliography according to such criteria as credibility, quality of writing, date of publication, and established authority.
      6. Identify in particular sources the material likely to be useful and appropriate in a given paper.
      7. Write précis of short texts.
      8. Produce notes in which the mixture of direct and indirect quotation and various forms of summarizing show an understanding of how outside information is used in researched essays and reports.
      9. Produce appropriate notes on information in published tables, charts, and graphs.
      10. Use electronic and textual library research equipment, indexes, and catalogues to identify and locate potentially useful sources of information on various topics.
      11. Write passages synthesizing and analyzing data collected from a variety of sources and incorporate them in essays and reports of substantial length.

    2. Assessment Strategies
      The instructor will
      1. Evaluate both the student's research process and the final product.
      2. Use student self-assessment rubrics.
      3. Use peer evaluation rubrics.
      4. Score holistically by trained faculty teams.
      5. Score holistically using trained peers.
      6. Use collaborative, small-group peer assessments.
      7. Administer objective and essay exams to demonstrate command of research procedures and standard conventions of documentation.
      8. Require oral defenses of findings and interpretations in major essays and reports based on research.
      9. Schedule instructor-student conferences.
      10. Assign hands-on tests or exercises using appropriate research technology in both electronic and print form.
      11. Evaluate portfolios of research process.

  5. Presentation Competencies
    The student will
    1. Select or design appropriate academic and workplace communication formats and styles and use them in oral or written presentations, both individually and collaboratively, to achieve a specific purpose.
    2. Use computer applications to write and format documents and to create and integrate visual materials where appropriate to support text.

    1. Acquisition Strategies
      The student will
      1. Format appropriately a variety of academic and workplace writing tasks.
      2. Prepare oral and written presentations acceptable to the intended audience for either academic or workplace communication.
      3. Prepare computer-generated documents using computer graphics or other visual materials as appropriate.

    2. Assessment Strategies
      The instructor will
      1. Evaluate both the student's process and the final product.
      2. Use student self-assessment rubrics.
      3. Use peer evaluation rubrics.
      4. Score holistically using trained faculty teams.
      5. Encourage holistic scoring by trained peers.
      6. Provide for evaluation by professionals in the workplace.
      7. Use collaborative, small-group peer assessments.
      8. Administer objective and essay exams to demonstrate student knowledge of various academic and workplace formats and graphics options.
      9. Administer objective and essay exams which require the student to respond using a computer.
      10. Schedule instructor-student conferences.
      11. Evaluate portfolios of documents for presentation effectiveness.


CEI - North Carolina Conference of English Instructors - Est. 1972