Frequently Asked Questions - General FAQs

As ISUComm continues to grow, our goal is an ambitious one. You should encounter more communication in many of your courses, not just your ISUComm Foundation Course. Not only will you be practicing communication more, but you’ll be hearing more about the hows and whys of effective communication. You should encounter much of the same terminology as well. As you take courses in your major, expect to run into some of the communication terms presented in this guide. Even if you don’t, use these terms as a way to analyze the communication situations and perform the communication tasks that you’ll be using in your career. Communication learning never ends. To be a responsible citizen in a democracy like ours requires our best communication skills. Build on what you learn here to contribute to the activities that strengthen our society.

Automatic Exemption from English 150 (104)

Students can be exempted from English 150 (104) and receive 3 hours of "T" credit for 150 (104) if they meet one of the following criteria AND receive a "C" or better in English 250 (105) taken at Iowa State University:

• If using ACT-E scores: ACT-E score of 24 or higher OR ACT-E score of 23 and high school rank of at least 75% or higher.
• If using SAT-V scores: SAT-V score of 550 or higher OR SAT-V score of 540 and high school rank of at least 75% or higher.

Students who do not have a high school rank but do have an ACT-E of 23 or SAT-V of 540 must take English 150 (104) unless they pass the English 150 (104) Placement Assessment.

This policy affects not only new students but also current students who have not yet fulfilled their ISUComm Foundation Courses (First-Year Composition) requirements.

English 150 (104) Placement Assessment

This is a test that allows students an opportunity to challenge their placement in English 150 (104) if students' ACT-E/SAT-V scores are not high enough to automatically place them in English 250 (105). Students are given 30 minutes to plan and write an essay on a prompt the ISUComm Foundation Courses Director has prepared. There is no fee to take the English 150 (104) Placement Assessment.

The English 150 (104) Placement Assessment will be administered by the Testing Office in January, March, April, May, June, August, October, and November. Students are to contact their adviser for actual dates of the English 150 (104) Placement Assessment. If a student demonstrates sufficiently high writing skills, student is placed in English 250 (105). Listed below are the skills required for such a placement.

• Relevant examples and details to back up assertions.
• Good organization—sense of development and generally unified paragraphs.
• Fair command of vocabulary and sentence structure.
• Grammar, punctuation, spelling largely correct, with some occasional problems perhaps; overall, though, correctness doesn't seriously inhibit reading.

NOTE: Students who are exempted from or who place out of English 150 (104) will receive 3 hours of "T" credit for English 150 (104) only if they take English 250 (105) at Iowa State University and receive at least a "C" in the course. English 250 (105) must normally be completed by the end of the student's sophomore year.

For additional information, students should contact their advisers.

Advanced Placement (AP) Credit for English 150 (104)

Students who earn a score of 3 or better on the Advanced Placement Exam for English Language and Composition receive credit by examination for English 150 (104).

Students who earn a score of 4 or better on the Advanced Placement Exam for English Literature and Composition receive credit by examination for English 150 (104). Students who have already placed into English 250 because of ACT-E or SAT-V scores receive 3 credits of 100 Literature.

Students do not receive credit for English 250 (105) based on Advanced Placement Exam scores.

ISUComm is Iowa State University’s communication-across-the-curriculum initiative. The goal of ISUComm is to strengthen student communication and enhance students’ critical thinking skills by creating opportunities for them to practice communication skills throughout their academic careers. While many institutions have similar outreach efforts to train and encourage faculty from all disciplines to include writing assignments in their courses, ISUComm speaks to a broader set of communication competencies. Rather than focus solely on written communication, ISUComm is contemporary and comprehensive in its emphasis on oral, visual, and electronic skills development as well.

WOVE is an acronym that stands for “written, oral, visual, and electronic” communication. More commonly referred to as “multimodal communication,” this pedagogy serves as the basis for ISUComm’s efforts toward student-centered, contemporary curriculum reform. In the new foundation courses that ISUComm has developed, ISUComm is building upon an integrated approach to writing instruction that has been underway at ISU for some time. Almost all composition classes use electronic classrooms; all teach students how to engage in small group discussions and oral critiques with peers; many sections of these courses incorporate brief oral presentations; and many of these classes now address some design aspects of written texts, such as headings and page layout. By bringing WOVE pedagogy into their classrooms, teachers provide all students with the kind of communication instruction that prepares them to communicate with expertise in multiple settings and with multiple media.