No writing instruction can prepare students for every writing situation, contrary to what is often assumed of college composition courses. The WAC program at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) admits their required composition course sequence won’t prepare students for every writing assignment in and out of the classroom. Instead, the SLCC composition instructors contend that writing instruction should prepare students to ask questions and adapt their writing to meet different rhetorical situations. The SLCC WAC program created and shared this excellent graphic (below) with the questions their students are expected to ask, answer, and act on as they write. By teaching ways of thinking about writing instead of specific genres, students can ask questions specific to the writing task, and not just consider more general genre characteristics. Have you considered these questions as a starting place to encourage rhetorical flexibility? How could you adapt your instruction to include these questions?
Read the full article here: http://www.slcc.edu/wac/required-composition-sequence.aspx