Upper Division Writing Intensive Course within a Major

Upper Division Writing Intensive Course within a Major

Upper Division Writing Intensive Course within a Major

All students must complete an upper division writing intensive (WI) course within their major field of study. These courses fulfill the general education requirement for a Writing Intensive course, but because they fulfill major requirements as well, do not increase the required credit hours for general education.

In order for a course to be designated a WI course, the course must possess the following characteristics:

1. Students will be required to produce at least two essays, each with a different rhetorical purpose (e.g. research essay, critical review essay, literature review, proposal, executive memo, personal narrative, self-reflection, ethnography, analytic essay, journals, lab report, reaction paper, lesson plans, etc.). Courses should contain a series of short papers distributed throughout the semester rather than one or two major projects. One stand-alone writing assignment will not satisfy the requirement.

2. Students will produce at least one of their essays through a drafting process. They will submit a first draft at least a week in advance of the final deadline and receive formative feedback from their instructor, which they must also receive in advance of the final deadline.  Students will use the feedback to revise their final draft. The intent of the WI requirement is that writing is being used as a mode of instruction; therefore, it is clearly not appropriate to have written assignments concentrated at the end of the semester.

3. Each student will meet with their instructor at least one time during the semester to talk about their work in progress, preferably in the first half of the semester. The instructor acts as an expert and the student as an apprentice in a community of writers. Types of interaction will vary. For example, an instructor should provide comments on drafts and may choose to meet with students during the writing process or after they complete their papers.

4. Instructors are strongly recommended to assign guided-reading activities for students to teach them how to read within the discipline. These assignments should be completed when students read key sources either inside or outside of class: for example, note-taking activities may be short writing prompts, group summary presentations, graphic organizers, or quotation lists. Ideally, reading assignments will be designed to reinforce unique disciplinary methods of reading.

5. Writing contributes significantly to each student's course grade. The course requires students to do a substantial amount of writing: a minimum of 5000 words, or about 20 pages. This may include informal writing and should include drafts.

6. Students must be required to use library resources, information-seeking practices, and discipline-appropriate citation practices to complete one of the assignments in the class. Instructors are recommended to invite a librarian to their classes to talk to students about how to find resources.

7. To allow for meaningful professor-student interaction on each student's writing, the class is restricted to 20 students. (Any larger enrollments must be justified by other factors related to the instructor's and the department's overall teaching responsibilities.)