Teaching Writing in the First Year

Our goals for our students include the following:

• Deepening their critical reading and thinking skills
• Teaching them how to contemplate and then to compose good scholarly questions
• Helping them find, evaluate, and employ the resources that can help answer these questions
• Guiding them as they craft thoughtful, clear, and well-supported arguments
• Encouraging them to revise by re-engaging with their questions, and re-envisioning their arguments

We further hope that our courses encourage students to develop the rhetorical flexibility that will enable them to address the challenges of writing in a variety of situations, with a variety of modes, and in a variety of disciplines.

Instructors who have not taught writing before will want to know more about how they can design courses that will achieve these aims. They will also want to know more about what methods are commonly and effectively employed.  We offer here a brief introduction to the principles and practices of our first-year courses. Instructors can look forward to hearing more about these methods and philosophies in the Institute's ongoing professional development workshops.  They will also discover the value of being part of a corps of experienced and informed colleagues, who are always delighted to engage in conversations about teaching.

You can begin your exploration of our materials here:

• Active Learning in the First-Year Classroom
• Conducting Writing Workshops
• Diagnosing and Responding to Student Writing
• Collaborative Learning

If you'd like to confer about any aspect of your teaching, do not hesitate to contact Director of the Writing Program.