Goals and Objectives for Tier II

1. Build upon students' rhetorical understanding to compose documents that reflect the authors’ recognition of using information to influence readers.

• Define a problem.
• Find appropriate information.
• Evaluate information.
• Use appropriate rhetorical, linguistic, cultural, genre, disciplinary, and academic conventions.

2. Use a variety of organizational strategies to integrate authorities smoothly into documents that explore issues and answer questions appropriate for liberal education.

• Recognize and use strategies, formats and conventions from different fields of knowledge in writing assignments.
• Recognize choices in the development of writing to create documents that are appropriately organized in their larger structure, developed in paragraphs, and developed in tone.
• Demonstrate the ability to integrate a variety of sources while following the conventions of academic citation.
• Employ a varied style that includes sophisticated syntax and diction chosen for specific audiences, while avoiding errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

3. Recognize and use process strategies for writing.

• Build on previous process objectives geared to specific audiences by proposing, planning, and undertaking more complex research projects that involve a number of information literacy and writing activities.
• Continue to identify and evaluate relevant sources, in this case, of the student’s own choosing. In general, the sources are longer, more complex, and more reflective of the student’s understanding of discourse communities than in Tier I.
• Recognize the social nature of writing by engaging in both individual and collaborative inquiry projects, group brainstorming, research, composing, and peer review throughout the several stages of the writing process.
• Identify, recognize and critique the intellectual and social contexts and cultural assumptions in which one frames the inquiry/ argument.
• Begin to integrate visual and/or auditory material into print texts.

4. Read and evaluate various sources and modes of information important to research and inquiry in academic and professional settings.

5. To learn web and digital environments necessary for conducting and writing research, for example:

• Understand the effect that computing is having on the culture.
• Participate in synchronous and asynchronous discussions that extend learning beyond the classroom.
• Engage in interactive multi-media projects to connect the insights gained from practice with theory.

6. Use various software, especially those that shift the traditional time and space for learning, to practice cooperative and collaborative strategies.

• Use university-supported course management software.
• Seek innovative ways to connect scholarly inquiry with the world beyond the academy.

7. Acquire and Practice Information Literacy.

• Build on Tier I goals by effectively integrating research into a more formal inquiry project.
• Use more specialized or appropriate databases than Academic Search Premier.
• Become more aware of academic honesty issues and ramifications of records privacy, plagiarism and copyright issues, especially on the web.
• In the final project demonstrate mastery of all information literacy skills introduced in Tier I and Tier II.

Requirements for Tier II

1. To write at least 20 pages (double spaced 12 pt. font) of graded writing. In addition to these formal graded pieces of writing, students will also produce informal writing that may consist of, but is not limited to, journals, process or research logs, responses to reading assignments, free-write activities, peer responses, and multiple drafts for each graded, formal writing assignment.

2. To develop at least three formal papers, one of which must be an inquiry-based research paper of eight to ten pages (double spaced) long.

3. To learn to gather, analyze and use information to make a point about a specific claim or thesis in advancing a strong argument within a specific topic or area of study.

4. To learn how to use library resources.

5. To become comfortable utilizing appropriate electronic databases for searching and retrieving appropriate research sources.

6. To learn a recognizable and appropriate documentation style for citing research sources and preparing bibliographies.