Using Rhetorical Media to Meet Outcomes
and Satisfy Stakeholders
The Community
The concerns of the community at large are explored in the short video below.
The Bottom Line: The community needs graduates who can solve problems, collaborate and write fluently.
Addressing these Interests: To address these interests coursework should be designed that requires students to work together to solve problems, but additional assignments should require students to help students practice writing in Standard Academic English and in forms that the community might demand of them (such as business genres). Each Unit of the Film Project course (1, 2, 3, and 4) is designed to prioritize these interests.
Video Transcript
The community needs students that can contribute to its businesses and economy. According to a 2007 press release by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, Liberal Education and America’s Promise, also known as LEAP, reported that of employers surveyed “nearly two-thirds (63 percent) say that too many of today’s graduates lack the skills to succeed in our global economy. By large numbers, employers call on colleges and universities to place more emphasis on helping students acquire broad knowledge, intellectual and practical skills, personal and social responsibility, and the integration and application of learning” (Humpheys & Wright, 2007).
The press release on this report emphasizes the desire from the business community to see graduates that can solve problems and can work collaboratively. Yet the business world also emphasizes the need for students to have the basics. George Leef says that “roughly half of new workforce entrants with 2-year degrees and more than a quarter with 4-year degrees were rated as deficient with regard to their ability to write and understand written material” (Leef, 2006).
According to the National Commission on Writing’s 2004 report “Writing: A Ticket to Work or a Ticket Out” writing is a major component to employee’s day-to-day jobs and a major factor in hiring decisions. Therefore, it seems that to serve the community, composition course must prepare students to solve problems, collaborate, and be prepared to write fluently.
