1.0 Diagnostic Essay Process Overview

Student Outcomes: 

As a result of this unit and assignment, students will be able to:

• Recognize and apply prewriting and drafting strategies that work best for their personalities and needs. 
• Interpret a variety of writing prompts to create essays that appropriately address the question(s) and directions 
• Identify and write effective introductions, thesis statements, and conclusions 
• Create basic PIE paragraphs that have topic sentences, one main idea and are coherent 
• Use six strategies for connecting ideas to create better paragraph coherence 

Assignment Description:

Students will take the Diagnostic Exam on the 2nd day of class to help the instructor become familiar with the writing styles of each student, and thus better help them improve their academic writing skills throughout the semester. Various basic writing skills will then be introduced in this first unit (see Unit Modules below) to help students to identify the gaps in their writing skills and apply them to their Diagnostic Exam Essay. **This unit serves as a way to help students build foundational writing skills; a 5-paragraph essay is not typical for graduate students, but it will help them focus on structure, organization, and paragraph structure for this first unit.**

Students will then work on and submit two items:

1. A formal outline of their diagnostic exam essay: After Module 1.3 Formal Outline and Thesis Statements, students should create an outline based on their diagnostic exam essay, but may revise it however they deem necessary. This will be formally submitted as part of their final grade to place emphasis on the writing process. 
2. A revision of their diagnostic exam essay: By the end of the unit, students should have revised or rewritten their diagnostic exam essay incorporating all of the skills learned in this unit. 

Assessment Prompt & Grading Rubric:

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