1) Risk-taking
Part of any learning process involves taking risks. Through the use of the Learning Record and the inventio processes of building a Mystory, this class will provide an environment that enables and rewards risk-taking. Part of your task in this class is to take risks in an attempt to build your Mystory and help build new ways of reading and writing (what Ulmer calls electracy).

2) Developing inventio processes
Throughout this class, you will be asked to compile a lot of information that may or may not be related. This is a process that the Greek and Roman rhetoricians have called inventio, and it will allow you to put seemingly disconnected ideas together in new and interesting ways. It will be your task to develop ways of gathering this information, sorting through it, and using it to make new meanings.

3) Developing revision processes
All writing is revision, and we will be focusing on continuous revision throughout this semester. You will compose nearly all of your work in a Wiki, and this will allow you to track the various revisions of your work (through the "history" link for each page). While writers find different ways to revise their work, no one creates substantive writing without significant revision. Another of your tasks for this semester will
be to develop processes of revision that work for you.

4) Multimedia Writing
In this class, writing will involve something much more than words on a page. We will be composing online, and this means that hyperlinks, images, video, and audio are all part of the writing equation. These different media are not merely supplements to your writing, they are part of the text that you create. You should consider an image to be a part of your text, not an "add-on" to the words you've written. Hyperlinks are not merely different ways of finding information, they are a new medium with which you can experiment. You will be tasked with using varying media to write in this class as you create the different parts of your Mystory.

Understand and apply literary analysis to a wide range of texts
We'll be studying a number of critical approaches to literature and culture in this class. Throughout the course, you should be thinking about how to apply these methods to all types of texts, literary or otherwise. In addition, you should be thinking about how literary analysis intersects with other disciplines.

Analyze, apply, and formulate theories about the work of narratives in culture
This class will allow you to consider how different narratives shape our experience. As we study different theories, you should be figuring out how to apply them to different texts and how you can combine them to formulate your own ideas about how and why narratives matter.

Develop and refine writing and revision skills
This is a Significant Writing Component (SWC) course, so your writing assignments will be a way to refine your writing processes and skills. As we revise and refine our writing in this class, you should be developing practices that you can carry with you after you leave this course.

Appreciation of Multiple Arguments and Positions
Arguments are complex. They deal with audiences, situations, and texts that are constantly changing. In order to account for this complexity, writers and readers of arguments should come to a rhetorical situation with a number of different arguments in mind. A balanced approach to argument considers multiple positions and weighs these positions in a thoughtful, considerate way. In addition, this approach allows us to step out of our own shoes and into those of another. By putting ourselves in different roles, we can better appreciate positions with which we disagree.

Critical reading skills
Who is the audience for a text? Who is the author? What is the argument they're making? Why would they make such an argument? What language do they use, and why? These are some of the questions a critical reader asks. Critical reading is about not only understanding what an argument says or whether we agree or disagree. Critical readers consider (among other things) how an argument works, how it attempts to persuade, who it attempts to persuade, and whether the argument acknowledges multiple viewpoints.

Thoughtful revision
Commas, periods, capitalization are just one very small part of revision. When revising a piece of writing, we should consider: moving portions of the argument around, eliminating weak points, expanding stronger arguments, and pulling things together to form a cohesive argument. When we say "thoughtful revision" in this class, we mean this type of carefully considered rewriting of a paper.

Collaboration
Writing is not a solitary activity. We always interact with other people and other texts as we create and interpret arguments. In addition to working with a group on a project, we also help one another understand arguments through class discussions and reading responses. When considering your collaborative work in this class, think about all the ways you've been able to draw on the work of others, and think about how you've contribued to the learning processes of others.