Composition Curricula: Models from Within the Affiliate 

Composition Curricula: Models from Within the Affiliate 

Eastern Michigan University –  https://www.emich.edu/english/fywp/

The First-Year Writing Program (FYWP) provides curriculum, instruction, and assessment for the following courses, open to all undergraduates at Eastern Michigan University.

  • WRTG 120: Composition I – Writing the College Experience, a credit-bearing elective course that counts toward graduation, introduces key concepts of college-level literacy including awareness of genre conventions and strategies, the notion of writing as a process, and the role of literacy in shaping the identities of writers as students, citizens, and individuals.
  • WRTG 121: Composition II – Researching the Public Experience, fulfills the Effective Communication requirement in EMU’s General Education curriculum and focuses on the expectations for college-level research through attention to a range of research methods and genres of writing, with emphasis on the role of inquiry, audience awareness, and revision in the processes of writing and learning at the college level.

Curriculum and pedagogy for all course offerings in the FYWP grow out of program-wide learning outcomes that guide the work of instructors and students in developing and documenting the knowledge, abilities, and attitudes that support college-level writing and research.

Grand Valley State Universityhttps://www.gvsu.edu/writing/first-year-writing-overview-27.htm

The Department of Writing at GVSU offers two first-year writing courses that are designed to prepare students for academic research writing by emphasizing the writing process, information literacy, and rhetorical awareness. All first-year students are invited to select which first-year writing course (or courses) they believe they are best suited for using a directed self-placement model. WRT 098 (Writing with a Purpose) is an elective developmental writing course that offers students practice in writing and research to prepare for WRT 150. WRT150 (Strategies in Writing) is a portfolio-based research writing course. Students in WRT 150 write and revise three essays that are included in their final portfolio, which is graded collaboratively by a team of first-year writing faculty.

Oakland Universityhttps://www.oakland.edu/wrt/first-year/

The Department of Writing and Rhetoric offers first-year writing classes that focus on helping students to develop the rhetorical skills, processes, and information literacies necessary for writing and composing in the 21st century. Our classes focus on community and civic engagement, new media composition, collaborative writing, and revision.