The following document is the standards for First Year Composition as established by the College English Committee for the state of Maryland. These standards guide the design and practices of every FYC program in the state, including the classes here a Prince George’s.
As you read through the document, think about what you have already learned about academic writing.
- How does this statement of standards align with the other statements about First Year Composition that you’ve already read? How do these standards diverge from the others?
- What do the statements here tell you about what college professors might value?
- Do any of these statements surprise or confuse you?
The Maryland Statewide Standards
for College English Committee
Statement of Expectations
First-Year Composition
1. Each institution will develop a composition program, one which may include a sequence of courses, consistent with the need of its student population and mission. However, the composition course (or sequence) that fulfills the general education requirement should
- be informed by current research in composition and rhetoric
- advance students’ awareness of their roles as writers, including understanding that they participate with others in public discourse and have moral and ethical responsibilities in that discourse
- foster information literacy skills, including appropriate use of current technology
2. Upon completing the designated composition course or sequence, students should be able to demonstrate the following skills in these areas:
Rhetorical Knowledge W.11-12.1d, L.11-12.3, L.11-12.5*
- identify and analyze key rhetorical concepts, such as purpose and audience, when reading and composing a variety of texts.
- choose and employ stylistic options (tone, word choice, sentence patterns) appropriately for audience and purpose
- understand concepts and skills involved in addressing a range of audiences
Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing W.11-12.7, W.11-12.8*
- compose academic papers and design projects with effective thesis statements that make assertions which are supported by relevant details and evidence
- support topic sentences with appropriate major and minor details
- integrate composing and reading for inquiry, learning, critical thinking, and communicating in various rhetorical contexts
- locate and evaluate (for credibility, sufficiency, accuracy, timeliness, and bias) research materials, including journal articles and essays, books, scholarly and professionally established and maintained databases or archives, and informal
electronic networks and internet sources - use strategies—such as interpretation, synthesis, response, critique, and design/redesign—to compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those from appropriate sources
- synthesize appropriate sources of information to compose extended documents
Processes W.11-12.5, L.11-12.1b, L.11-12.3a*
- employ a multiple-step writing process (i.e. planning, drafting, revising, and editing)
- develop a writing project through multiple drafts
- develop flexible strategies for reading, drafting, reviewing, collaborating, revising, rewriting, rereading, and editing
- learn to give and to act on productive feedback to works in progress
- reflect on the development of composing practices and how those practices influence their work
Knowledge of Conventions W.11-12.8, L.11-12.2, L.11-12.3*
- demonstrate knowledge of linguistic structures, including grammar, punctuation, and spelling, through practice in composition and revising
- learn appropriate formats and features when composing texts for a variety of purposes or audiences
- explore the concepts of intellectual property (such as fair use and copyright) that motivate documentation conventions
- practice applying citation conventions systematically in their own work
3. To help students achieve these goals, faculty should
- integrate significant readings to support the writing process
- require a minimum of 4500 words of revised, polished academic writing, including extended writing assignments (completed outside of class)
- base at least 70 percent of the final grade on academic writing
*Signifies Common Core Standards adopted by MSDE
Follow this link for more information: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/W/11-12/