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Writing 2-3
About the Course
Writing 2-3 is designed for those students seeking to achieve excellence in writing through two terms of serious intellectual engagement and intensive academic support. Writing 2-3 students receive this support from committed faculty and graduate student tutors who have training in writing pedagogy. By committing themselves to the rigorous process of reading, writing, discussing, researching, conferring, and rewriting, students learn to craft clear and compelling academic arguments. Students meet weekly with their tutor for a 45-minute, one-on-one conference to discuss their writing. Students meet with the same class, instructor and tutor for both terms. Class size is limited to 15 students.
One of these sections is exclusively for international students. Importantly, this is not an ESL grammar course. It is a course for students who might have conducted all or part of their schooling in English or who speak English fluently but have not had the opportunity to write extensively in English and desire a more gradual immersion into academic writing in the context of US higher education.
Writing 2-3 is taken in place of Writing 5. Students must complete both fall and winter terms of Writing 2-3 to fulfill the first-year writing requirement. Students take First-Year Seminar in the spring after completing Writing 2-3. Writing 2-3 does not serve in partial satisfaction of the Distributive or World Culture Requirements.
Guidelines for Students
Writing 2 Expectations
In Writing 2, students will commit to the following:
- They will practice writing as discovery
- They will work on crafting an effective thesis
- They will learn to create a sound argumentative structure
- They will engage in peer critique
- They will develop the habit of substantive revision
Writing 2 requires at least two argumentative essays, with revision and pre-writing exercises attached. These assignments increase in complexity as students move from working with single texts, to working with multiple texts.
Writing 3 Expectations
In Writing 3, students will commit to the following:
- They will engage in research
- They will learn citation protocol
- They will practice the elements of style
- They will polish the skills they acquired in Writing 2
- They will attempt alternative, more sophisticated rhetorical strategies
Writing 3 fosters the development of research competencies and requires the production of a culminating research paper. The research paper is produced in phases (annotated bibliography, tentative abstract, thesis and outline, first draft, second draft, and so on) and additional essays may also be assigned throughout the term.
General Guidelines
To achieve the aims of the course, students will want to attend to the following general guidelines:
- Students will read texts carefully and closely, with the aim of formulating questions and assumptions that will yield good academic papers.
- Students will undergo a multiple-draft process of every paper. They will regularly revise their work in response to comments from their instructor, tutor, and classmates.
- Students will be active members of class discussions and will participate actively in peer critiques.
- Students will undertake a research project of their own design. They will familiarize themselves with the Dartmouth library system and its resources. They will also learn proper citation protocols. (See Sources.)
- Students will meet with the course tutor once a week.
- Students will attend conferences and will observe deadlines and other policies as required by their instructors.
- Students will familiarize themselves with the Academic Honor Principle.
Learning Outcomes
In Writing 2-3, we expect you will begin to develop the core capabilities you need for college writing and thinking, which include: reading, inquiry, analysis, interpretation, discussion, and composing. You will learn to approach your own writing with different writing tools and strategies and to choose the best tools and strategies to create and communicate your meaning for any given context. By committing yourself to the rigorous process of reading, writing, discussing, researching, conferring, and rewriting, you will learn to craft clear and compelling academic arguments.
For each of the following categories, by the end of Writing 2-3 you should be able to demonstrate the ability described:
- Inquiry: Read actively, generate appropriate research questions and understand writing and speaking as a process of inquiry and discovery.
- Interpretation: Research, analyze, and synthesize the elements of an argument, and compose interpretations of texts.
- Contextualization: Understand that the elements of composition (reading, researching, writing, thinking) always occur within social/academic contexts and that the best authorial choices arise from an appreciation of these contexts.
- Construction: Construct arguments using a variety of media that are informed, persuasive, and engaging, and support those arguments with different types of evidence.
- Revision: Revise texts, showing understanding that good writing is a process of revision (of re-reading, re-researching, re-drafting, re-thinking), that it displays a knowledge of conventions, and that compositions can improve with suggestions from secondary readers.
- Assessment: Assess yourselves as thinkers and writers in order to assess the quality of your own work and to revise accordingly.
- Collaboration: Engage effectively in collaborative work, including research projects, presentations, conferences, and peer responses.
- Finally, you should be able to demonstrate confidence as productive, capable contributors to the academic community.