The Dynamic Criteria Map
First-Year Writing
July 28, 2015
Over two full days in the summer of 2015, 9 FYW faculty got together to read and discuss
student writing submitted in a sampling of TCORE 101 courses from Winter quarter 2015. This
dynamic criteria mapping (DCM) activity was facilitated by Bob Broad, who originated the
process (What We Really Value, 2004). The DCM map below is the product of those activities.
What it reveals is our current, tentative understanding of what we value in the writing we were
able to look at. The FYW program will use this map to help us have discussions about writing
and our expectations of our students and further explore what we value in student writing.
1. Author’s intellectual and rhetorical agency and presence
a. Ethos
b. Voice
c. Prowess
d. Subjectivity
e. “There’s a real human being behind the page.”
2. Control demonstrated in the document/text
a. Focus
b. Unity
c. Cohesion
d. Clarity
e. Concision, brevity
f. Fulfilling the assignment; addressing necessary parts
3. Courage (is this a thread that ties together many rhetorical values?)
a. Guts
b. Risk
c. Hope
4. Use of sources and data
a. effectively support the argument/analysis
b. setup: “quotation sandwich”; lead reader toward and away from quotations from
sources
c. varied
d. include credible, appropriate (to purpose and genre), recent, authoritative
publications and other kinds of data
e. quantitative data and analysis where appropriate
f. personal experiences included where appropriate
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g. uses multimedia sources (images, sounds, video); visual presentations of
quantitative data (charts, tables, figures)
h. documentation: in-text citations, end-text list of references
i. independent research; student found sources beyond what were provided to the
class
5. Thinking, ideas, and argument
a. Analysis, critical thinking
b. Imagination, creative thinking
c. Inquiry, questioning, learning
d. Elaboration of ideas, commentary, unpacking, complexity, “chewing” on things
e. Answers “So what?”; substance, relevance, application
f. Addressing complicating arguments
g. Applying concepts and theoretical frameworks from class
6. Managing and leading the reader’s relationship with the writer and text
a. Introductions frame the discussion (e.g. greet the reader)
b. Transition sentences elaborate on topic sentences
c. Signposting, roadmapping: guiding the reader through the discussion
d. Section headings
e. Structure, organization, form
f. Conclusions pull together the whole argument/analysis (e.g. say goodbye to the
reader)
g. genre performance
7. Metacognition
a. Process
b. Revision
c. Reflection
d. Genre awareness
e. Engagement with rhetorical concepts and threshold concepts in composition;
theorizing writing
8. Styling
a. Diction (word choice)
b. Effective repetition
c. Sentence craft (sentence variety, complexity, and boundaries)
d. Mechanics (usage, punctuation)
e. Poetic license (rhyme, wordplay, intentional fragments and other artful
transgressions of conventions)
f. Humor
9. Some other/new important value/criterion
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