Acad Writing:Multiling Writer

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This academic writing course is designed to help students of international affairs grasp the fundamentals of writing and research in an interdisciplinary context. In this course, students will come to understand writing as a process of complex interactions of critical investigation, discussion, reading, and writing. Because learning to write effectively requires practice and develops over time, students will be given opportunities to revise papers after receiving informed feedback. By engaging in research driven by critical inquiry, students will learn to integrate outside sources effectively and position their voices among other academic voices. Students will also learn to critically read a variety of texts (including their classmates’ drafts) in order to analyze their content, structure, argumentation, purpose and audience, and to evaluate their effectiveness. Students will develop rhetorical agility by learning to identify rhetorical situations and compose in a variety of genres. Throughout this course, students will gain facility with the conventions and mechanics of grammar, syntax and academic style, but they will also have opportunities to use writing to learn, engaging in low-stakes assignments such as journaling that will not be graded on grammar. The writing studio model is based on active pedagogy where students meet in class twice per week, and then additionally in small groups in a ‘third space” outside the classroom to work on their assignments under the guidance of writing center tutors and staff. This approach is designed to provide both academic and social support for first-year students as they transition from high school assignments to college-level writing.