Curriculum
First-Year Writing Courses (W1s)
Our first-year writing courses are small, writing-intensive courses taught by faculty across the curriculum. These courses are designed to introduce students to the rigorous culture of writing at Colby and to provide practice with expository writing, careful reading, and critical analysis. Designated W1 in the catalogue, these courses fulfill the first-year writing requirement and introduce students to the processes and tools they will need as writers throughout their college careers.
To that end, W1 courses share several features:
- strong emphasis on drafting, argument development, and revision;
- frequent writing in a variety of forms;
- rich professor and peer feedback;
- sustained exploration of ethical, critical, and formal expectations for college-level writing
See the W1 student learning outcomes and W1 Common Understandings (shared faculty guidelines).
Faculty and Students:
You can search for W1, W2, and W3 courses in Curriculum Search using the “W1/ Writing-Intensive” drop-down menu.
Upper-Level, Writing-Intensive Courses (W2s & W3s)
Upper-level, writing-intensive courses introduce students to field-specific writing and research practices and use writing to investigate issues in the disciplines. In these courses, writing and research practices appropriate to the major field(s) of study are taught, not simply assigned. For pedagogical reasons, the recommended course cap for W2s and W3s is 18 students.
W2 courses are intermediate, 200- or 300-level courses that introduce students to the methods, key questions, and common forms of writing in the discipline or interdisciplinary area for their major(s).
W3 experiences are 300- or 400-level courses or approved projects that provide practice in advanced writing and research and build on the goals and understandings for W1 and W2 courses.
Even across departments and majors, W2s and W3s share several common goals. At a minimum, students in these courses will:
- learn the purposes, forms, and conventions of writing in the field;
- write regularly throughout the semester;
- discuss their writing in class and with peers; and
- revise in response to feedback from professors and peers.
See the W2/W3 Common Understandings (shared faculty guidelines).
Colby Writing Department Courses
Writing Department faculty include professors Ghada Gherwash, Elizabeth Ketner, Carolyn Megan, Carl Schlachte, Stacey Sheriff, Bess Stokes, and Chaoran Wang. These faculty members teach a variety of writing-intensive courses in the Writing Department and the Department of English.
WP 111 Communication in Context: Offered in the fall for international students who are not yet taking their first-year writing (W1) course. Introduces students to the needs and expectations for written and oral communication in American academic English. Students will read and reflect on a variety of nonfiction texts. Includes classroom discussions, reflective journals, essays, and an oral presentation. Students will write three multi-draft papers that focus on different topics. Thus, the primary goal is to hone students’ communicative skills in English — both spoken and written. Three credit hours. GHERWASH
WP 112 Individual Writer’s Workshop: An individualized, weekly tutorial session with a trained peer writing tutor from the Farnham Writers’ Center. Meets weekly for 1 hour during the time of your choice for a total of (at least) 10 hours per semester. Open to students from first-years to seniors. Students usually take WP112 with a W1 (first-year writing) , senior thesis, or other writing-intensive courses. Meetings may focus on writing assignments, reading assignments, grammar, professors’ feedback or anything else related to writing or research for any courses. May be repeated for credit. Nongraded. One credit hour. GHERWASH, SHERIFF
WP 113 Conversation Hour for International Students: This one-credit course is designed for students who wish to practice/hone their oral academic English. Discussion based, which uses different texts and visual materials to prompt oral discussion. Students are expected to prepare for class discussion by reading texts, writing reflections, and viewing visual materials ahead of time. International students, and others with multilingual backgrounds are especially welcome. This course may be repeated twice for credit. One credit hour. Non-graded. GHERWASH
WP 115A First-Year Writing: Rhetoric, Writing, and Social Change: Focuses on effective writing, rhetorical analysis, and communicating with different audiences–including the Colby community. Writing projects will include three analytical essays and a final, public writing project in which each student identifies an issue in the Colby community, researches the situation, and develops a realistic proposal to improve it. Each week, we focus on a different aspect of college-level academic writing (e.g., paragraph development, sentence-level editing, analyzing research sources, making sound arguments, etc.) Readings are diverse and include non-fiction essays, newspaper journalism, videos, and scholarly writing on rhetoric, identity, and literacy. Four credit hours. W1. SHERIFF
WP 115C First-Year Writing: Reimagining the Essay: Reconsiders the essay’s potential for self-expression and analytical argumentation. Students read powerful essays of the past 70 years, write five essays, and reimagine their relationship to the genre. Of particular emphasis are clarity of expression, development of ideas, logical organization, and effective and correct use of research to support claims–both to prepare for future writing assignments and to appreciate the form as a means to express ideas complexly, gracefully, and persuasively. Four credit hours. W1. KETNER
WP 115D First-Year Writing: Food for Thought: The food we interact with is an expression of our humanity, our many cultures, our selves. This peer-review and process-oriented course combines reading across genres with the development of writing skills that can be applied in all disciplines. Students will practice personal narrative, argument, synthesis, and research-based writing and read work by both new and established authors. Four credit hours. W1. STOKES
WP 115E First-Year Writing: Writing through the Multicultural Lens: We will use the theme of multiculturalism/multilingualism as our framework to analyze a multitude of non-fictional texts that are composed by writers from a variety of cultural/linguistic backgrounds. The primary goal is to encourage students to question, interrogate, and challenge the stereotypes that have prevailed in the news and social media, aiming to foster cross-cultural communication. Students will write four papers that center around a topic of their choice. Students from underrepresented contexts, domestically and globally, as well as those with a functional knowledge of an additional language(s) are especially welcome. Four credit hours. W1. GHERWASH
WP115I First-Year Writing: Landscape and Place: Reading fiction, essays, and poetry, we will explore the nature of place and landscape as physical, social, and intellectual and consider what it suggests about American culture and ideas. We will consider how place and landscape, both real and imagined, influence writers as well as how these concerns influence our own lives as readers, writers, thinkers, and dreamers. In this first-year writing course, students will write personal narratives, argument, and synthesis as well as develop their critical reading skills. Four credit hours. W1. MEGAN
WP115J First-Year Writing: Non-fiction and the Imagination: The focus for our reading and writing will be the creative non-fiction essay. This form draws upon the skills of fiction, poetry and expository writing to arrive to the writer’s unique perspective of the world. Incorporating diverse elements such as research, dialogue, description, characterization, rhythm and sound, the writer imagines, questions, contradicts and complicates subject matter. Students will write personal narratives, argument, and synthesis as well as develop their critical reading skills. This course does not count as a workshop for the English: Creative Writing major. Four credit hours. W1. MEGAN
WP 115K First-Year Writing: Writing and Public Space (in a Socially-Distanced Age): This writing-intensive course examines how people use writing to build and sustain communities through activism, advocacy, and affiliation. Especially at a time when public spaces are less available, we will explore how people use writing to create and shape physical, virtual, and imagined community spaces, such as debates over monuments and statues or activism in social media to organize efforts like the 2018 March for Our Lives. Students will draft and revise text and multimedia to write for a variety of publics and communities. Major assignments include an analytical essay; a longer, collaboratively-written essay for which students choose a public space to reimagine; and a multimodal project. Four credit hours. W1. SCHLACHTE
WP 115L First-Year Writing: Cross-Cultural Ideas of Family: Full description coming. Four credit hours. W1. WANG
WP 120A Language, Thought, and Writing: Literary Conversations: Individual works of literature take part in a larger literary conversation that transcends time and space. Writers join the conversation by replicating existing literary forms and conventions. They also respond to perennial themes that have sparked writers’ imaginations. Literary scholars also engage in ongoing conversations about the purpose and meaning of literary texts. We will enter these conversations by reading, writing about, and discussing literary texts. We will have regular opportunities to respond creatively and analytically, in speech and writing, to some amazing poems, plays, and novels. Previously listed as English 120. Four credit hours. W1. KETNER
WP 151 Reading and Writing about Literature: Dark and Stormy Nights: Why do we love ghost stories? Why do haunted houses and castles and secrets and scary things fascinate and thrill us? We will trace the origins and patterns of the Gothic in literature and explore the human appetite for the sublime and the supernatural. This peer-review and process-oriented course combines reading across genres with the development of writing skills that can be applied in all disciplines. Four credit hours. W1. STOKES
WP 214 Tutoring Writing in Theory and Practice Listed as English 214. Four credit hours. GHERWASH
WP 310 Professional Writing: How to respond to rhetorical situations in the professional world. Emphasizes principles that can be adapted to any professional context. Students will learn how to assess the needs of rhetorical situations in the professional world, how to develop an understanding of the purposes and audiences of professional genres, how to prepare for the complexities of working in group settings, and how interrogation of issues of privilege, prejudice, and access to information allows us to design professional documents that are more inclusive. Prerequisite: Any W1 course. Four credit hours. W2, U. SCHLACHTE
WP 320 Introduction to Rhetoric and Writing Studies: Introduction to rhetorical theory and the writings of major figures in the history of rhetoric and composition, such as Aristotle, Isocrates, and Kenneth Burke. We will learn about persuasion and what’s essential for using rhetoric to change the opinions of others. Writing assignments will be varied and include rhetorical analysis, voice essays, and formal proposals. Conducted in a seminar style that emphasizes close reading and active participation. Prerequisite: Any W1 course. Four credit hours. W2. SHERIFF
EN 214 Tutoring Writing in Theory and Practice: A pedagogy and training course for writing tutors and writing fellows that focuses on peer review and collaborative learning in both theory and practice. Readings include essays and articles on peer review, learning styles and differences, multilingual student writing, strategies of revision, and writing center pedagogy. Assignments include writing, readings, grammar review and practice, a reflective blog, mock tutorials, and supervised tutorials to prepare enrolled students to help their peers improve as writers and to work with faculty as writing fellows. Students completing the course may apply for positions in the Writers’ Center. Prerequisite: Any W1 course. Four credit hours. GHERWASH
EN 310 Professional Writing: Listed as Writing Program 310. Four credit hours. SCHLACHTE
EN 202 Topics in Writing: Communicating Across Difference Listed as Writing Program 202. Four credit hours. SHERIFF
EN 491/492: Independent Study in Rhetoric & Composition: Individual projects exploring topics for which the student has demonstrated the interest and competence necessary for independent work. Prerequisite: Permission of a project advisor and the chair of the department. One to four credit hours. FACULTY
Please consult the college catalogue for current descriptions and schedules