125: Writing and Academic Inquiry
Course Description
Writing is at the heart of academic life. Whether we major in English or Neuroscience, Music Theory or Mathematics, we use writing to ask meaningful questions, communicate with others, and learn new things about ourselves and the world we live in. When we encounter a piece of polished writing, it can be easy to think of it simply as a translation of one’s thoughts onto the page. But writing is more than a finished product; it is an intellectual, imaginative, embodied, and social process that produces new thinking. As such, writing is actually a kind of learning that we can develop over time. Because writing is both a tool for thinking and a method for communicating our thinking to others, we can also practice strategies for writing to specific audiences and situations.
Therefore, English 125 offers you 1) opportunities to develop academic ways of thinking through writing, and 2) opportunities to practice writing techniques and strategies to convey your thinking to others.
The Specific Goals of English 125
In the English Department Writing Program, our overall learning goals for students in English 125 are as follows:
- To experiment with writing as a means of thinking, communicating, and creative expression in and beyond academic contexts
- To cultivate methods of inquiry that allow us to ask meaningful questions and engage thoughtfully with a wide range of perspectives
- To demonstrate awareness of the relationships between the social contexts in which writing occurs and the rhetorical choices writers make
- To apply strategies for reading and responding to others’ writing
- To practice writing as a collaborative and iterative process through revision and peer review
- To self-assess our use of varied writing strategies for communicating across different rhetorical contexts
Registered & Waitlisted Students
Please remember that you must attend BOTH the first and second class meetings in order to secure your position on the class roster or the waitlist. Failure to attend either meeting can result in your being dropped
from the course or the waitlist.
