First-Year Writing Program
Welcome to FYW at WCU!
Housed in the English department and taught primarily by full-time English faculty, our First-Year Writing courses are designed to help you succeed as a writer and develop as a thinker, both at the University and beyond. Our classroom best practices are based in research about (and expertise in) what works to help newer writers explore ideas, take ownership over their writing and writing processes, and learn "rhetorical agility"—that is, the ability to navigate and make change in different writing situations with awareness, sophistication, confidence, and, when the situation calls for it, resistance. In today's rapidly changing world, the skills that you will develop in our FYW program have never been more timely or important.
The FYW sequence fulfills the Academic Foundations in English Composition requirement within the university's General Education curriculum. What does that mean for you in terms of specific courses? Most likely, you will take WRT 120 or WRT 123, followed by a WRT 200-level option. If you have AP credits or have taken a composition course at another university, though, you may place directly into a WRT 200-level course. Learn more about each of our FYW courses and our writing placement survey (WRITESurvey).
What to Expect
The good news: Our program will expose you to some of the key genres and conventions of academic writing that you're likely to see over and over again in your classes at WCU. These genres include analysis (WRT 120 or WRT 123) and research (WRT 200-level courses), as well as memoirs, websites, personal essays, brochures, manifestos, investigative reporting, and more.
The "bad" news: Our classes won't guarantee that you'll be able to write perfectly in every course you take, or in every situation you ever face in the world outside the classroom. Writing scenes vary so much, even from course to course at a single university, and it would be impossible to teach you to master every last one.
But learning this lesson isn't bad at all; in fact, researchers in the field of Writing Studies have shown that being able to adapt to different writing situations is an essential step to writing success. Writers succeed when they bring their previous writing knowledge to bear on a new project—when they're able to apply what they already know and also ask what new things they need to know.
The best news: Our FYW classes will support you in this "learn to learn" approach, so that you'll be able to write more effectively in any situation, and learn to take an "inquiry stance" in any new communicative encounter. And our courses, faculty, assignments, texts, and your classmates will also support you to engage your voice, your curiosity, your mind, and your world.
Learning Outcomes
In addition to meeting WCU's General Education goals of critical thinking and effective communication, students who complete the FYW program will also be able to:
- THINK WITH WRITING. Use composing processes and tools as a means to discover ideas, engage deeply with questions, reconsider concepts and beliefs, explore problems, and promote local and global change, including but not limited to engaging those questions, problems, and concepts currently of relevance to the academy.
- THINK ABOUT WRITING. Develop metacognitive awareness about writing and rhetoric, including their role in shaping, perpetuating, and changing unjust power relationships in society.
- CONSTRUCT WRITING. Demonstrate genre awareness and rhetorical agility through both producing and problematizing academic and public, dominant and non-dominant, genres, in both written and multimodal forms.
Placement
For more information about placement, please visit our WRITESurvey FAQ.
Current Courses
- WRT 120: Effective Writing I emphasizes student awareness of "the self" as a writer and helps students to understand how various genres can enable writers to communicate ideas and experiences in different contexts, including the university itself.
- WRT 123: Effective Writing I with Supplemental Writing Workshop is a 4-credit course that builds one extra weekly instructor workshop into the WRT 120 assignments, and also pairs students with a peer mentor who will meet with students weekly to help their writing grow. (Offered Fall 2019 and later)
- WRT 200-level courses are designed to teach students how to use research in academic disciplines and related professions; to introduce techniques of finding and evaluating evidence for research-based genres, including scholarly research; and to provide practice in composing in these genres. Each of the courses listed below meets the same WRT 200-level General Education requirement, and students may pick any course they wish. Note: In Fall 2024 & Spring 2025, we are piloting a project to offer only WRT 200s. If you need to retake a WRT course that is not being offered, please contact Dr. Ashley Patriarca.
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- WRT 200: Critical Writing and Research. A general introduction to scholarly research writing and skills; focus may vary with instructor.
- WRT 204: Critical Writing: Approaches to Popular Culture. Students explore scholarly research related to television, film, music, social media, and other elements of "pop" culture.
- WRT 205: Critical Writing: Investigating Experience. Students explore the integration of personal experience and "the self" with scholarly research.
- WRT 206: Critical Writing: The Multidisciplinary Imagination. This course engages with the question, What role does imagination play in advancing new knowledge and perspectives, including scholarly research?
- WRT 208: Critical Writing: Entering the Public Sphere. This course offers students an opportunity to publish their writing in professional and/or class-produced print or electronic forums while also conducting scholarly research projects.
- WRT 220: Critical Writing: Special Topics. Each WRT 220 section offers a special topic that integrates scholarly research writing focusing on current (inter)disciplinary issues of importance in the humanities, arts, social sciences, and/or sciences; contact professor for more information.
Previous Courses
- ENG Q20: Basic Writing emphasizes the process of producing writing and focuses on the critical study of Academic Written English (AWE). Students will compose in various genres using revision and draft editing, and they'll develop a greater understanding of themselves as writers. (Offered through Summer 2016)
- ENG 150: Writing Studies Workshop is a 3-credit course paired with WRT 120 that provides intensive extra instruction for students who experience difficulty in writing. (Offered from Fall 2016-Spring 2019)
Questions or comments about First-Year Writing? Please contact Dr. Ashley Patriarca, the English Department's FYW Director. The First Year Writing Director can also be reached at 610-436-1665.