Writing 2-3

About the Course

This course is designed to help Dartmouth's underprepared writers who feel that they might benefit from two-terms of instruction to achieve excellence in writing through serious intellectual engagement and intensive academic support.  Writing 2-3 students receive this support from committed faculty and graduate student teaching assistants 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 teaching assistant for a 45-minute, one-on-one conference to discuss their writing.  Students meet with the same class, instructor and teaching assistant 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.