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Phase V: Implementation
SKILLS AND CONTENTS REQUIREMENT
Writing Across the Curriculum
- Definition for Bulletin:
- Courses designated as "writing intensive" stress the process of learning to write effectively. Such courses include a substantial amount of writing (a minimum of 20 pages), usually divided into several discrete assignments. Instructors pay close attention to matters of style and argumentation. Enrollments are limited to 19.
All Williams College students are required to take two writing intensive courses: one by the end of the sophomore year and one by the end of the junior year. Students will benefit most from writing intensive courses by taking them early in their college careers and are therefore strongly encouraged to complete the requirement by the end of the sophomore year.
- Further Explanation for Departments:
- All writing intensive courses require a minimum of 20 pages of writing, and are designed to provide students with useful criticism of their writing at different points over the course of the semester.
The writing will usually be divided into several discrete assignments, and might involve multiple drafts of a single assignment, rewriting assignments, or sequential assignments, the goal being to help students with matters of style and argumentation.
For example, a course might require four or five five-page papers, spaced so that the comments on each essay would be available to the student to improve the next. A course could require a one-page paper, then a three-page paper, then a five-page paper, then a 10-15 page paper. A course might also require one or two relatively short papers or exercises leading to a more lengthy (15-20 page) paper as long as issues of writing and argumentation are addressed through drafts, conferences, class discussions, or other means throughout the semester. A course requiring a single long paper due at the end of the semester, in which no required or structured means of addressing issues of writing are provided, would not be considered writing intensive, however fine a course it might be otherwise.
Therefore, students selecting a writing intensive course should expect some significant attention to writing, and not merely a minimum number of pages of writing. Methods might appropriately vary from course to course and department to department. Courses to be designated as writing intensive must be approved by the CEP.
Writing intensive courses have a maximum enrollment of 19 to allow for the instructor's appropriate attention to writing (through drafts, multiple assignments, conferences, class discussion, etc.) over the course of the semester.