Writing Intensive Courses continue students' development by emphasizing writing and revision in the context of specific disciplines.
Each student must complete a Writing Intensive Course by the end of the first semester of the sophomore year. The Writing Intensive Course may be taken within or outside the major; it may simultaneously satisfy other Liberal Education Program requirements.
Course Goals
- To initiate the student into the rhetorical and epistemological conventions of a specific "discourse community."
- To reinforce the understanding of writing as a recursive, social process.
- To foster the practice of synthesizing support for arguments from multiple sources.
- To develop the student's ability to read textual materials analytically, practicing comparison and synthesis of ideas presented in sources read.
Course Objectives
- The student will produce at least one longer paper through a recursive process involving instructor feedback before final submission.
- The student synthesizes information and interpretations gleaned from research or textual analysis.
- The student produces research-supported assignments which focus on using information, inferences, and interpretations to support a thesis, rather than simply to catalog information.
- The student compares and distinguishes the epistemological and rhetorical conventions of the target discipline and outside disciplines.
