The Writing Program offers two core curriculum courses. The first, Writing as Inquiry, is offered in the spring semester of the first year while Perspective on the Humanities follows in the fall semester of the second year. Both courses play a pivotal role in molding students' academic abilities and prepare them for the work expected of them within their chosen majors.
In Writing as Inquiry, the first-year workshop, students read texts and respond by writing their own. In doing so, they add their critical perspectives to ongoing academic and public conversations. Students work to write sophisticated and cogent prose, and learn to effectively incorporate written texts in the development of their own arguments. Class discussions include strategies for every step of the writing process—from invention and organization to research and revision. In a workshop setting, students analyze the work of their peers and respond to feedback on their own writing. By the end of the course, students should be able to recognize rhetorical strategies and genre conventions, dissect difficult textual material, and build clear and convincing arguments that matter both within and beyond academic contexts.
Following this foundational course, students advance to Perspectives on the Humanities, a thematic seminar with writing, discussion and workshop components. This course fulfills the Social and Cultural Foundations requirement within the Core Curriculum. Building on the critical thinking and writing skills cultivated in Writing as Inquiry, it introduces students to multidisciplinary approaches within the humanities. In this course, students not only acquire a nuanced understanding of the subject matter, but also practice advanced techniques of close reading and analysis. Compared with Writing as Inquiry, students tackle longer, more complex texts often in diverse genres or media forms, explore a broader spectrum of disciplinary perspectives, and apply their acquired content knowledge to produce written work of greater depth and sophistication.
Outstanding student writing from the two core writing courses is published each year in The Hundred River Review.