Learning Outcomes

Graduates of the B.A. in Rhetoric and Communications will know how to practice writing as a multi-staged, recursive process, one that
- employs revision as a means of invention;
- will have the stylistic repertoire to adjust text for such purposes as establishing a persona, meeting audience expectations, and conforming to genre conventions;
- will have the technical ability to edit text for errors in punctuation, grammar, syntax, and sentence construction;
- will be skilled in both the production and critical analysis of computer-mediated writing.
Graduates of the Major
- will demonstrate rhetorical judgment and adaptability and make communicative decisions that are grounded in theory and ethics;
- will be able to analyze, interpret, and evaluate a wide range of visual and verbal symbolic acts;
- will be able to assess such properties as purpose, bias, power relations, quality of argumentation, and underlying values in a wide range of communicative acts;
- draw on theories and analytic tools studied in a variety of courses.
The capacity for informed reflection on one’s own communicative practices.
The ability to draft, proofread, revise, and edit texts in a variety of academic and non-academic genres.
Practical and analytical facility with new communicative technologies.
Broad rhetorical knowledge and critical thinking skills.