First Year Writing and Research

The first-year writing program at Salve is a foundational component of our writing-enriched Core Curriculum. Writing is not only an important skill you need to succeed in your major and future career, but it's also an important tool for critical thinking and communicating ideas. During your Compass advising meeting, you'll select one of two pathways to complete the writing requirement.

What Will I Learn?

All first-year writing and research courses use a set of shared learning outcomes. In these courses, you will:

• Use a writing process to develop multiple college-level writing projects that respond to a variety of genres, media and modalities.
• Identify and use a variety of rhetorical concepts to analyze and compose a range of texts.
• Use writing, critical reading and research skills as tools for critical inquiry.
• Demonstrate the metacognitive awareness necessary to be able to apply composition skills to future situations.

Which Course Should I Take?

The first year writing self-placement questionnaire linked in your Canvas advising hub will help you choose a first-year writing course. The questionnaire asks you to reflect on your previous writing experiences, explains the differences between the course options, and helps you make an informed choice that is best suited to your individual writing needs. Both options offer rigorous courses that introduce you to writing as a field of study and offer opportunities to practice writing, revision, rhetorical awareness and reflection. Both options are designed to help you develop writing skills that you can use and adapt to your major. You will discuss your placement with your Compass advisor before you register for a writing class.

WRT105: College Writing and Research (Intensive)

Writing 105 is an intensive one-semester, three-credit writing course offered in both the fall and spring semesters. In this course, you'll develop critical writing, reading and research skills. This rigorous course will help you develop and refine your writing process, consider the choices writers make and the impact those choices have on readers, and practice college-level research skills. You'll produce 4-5 writing projects over the course of the semester, so you should feel ready to write frequently and have some confidence in your writing process.

Please note: Students in the Pell Honors Program are required to enroll in Pell sections of Writing 105. Pell sections are offered in both the fall and spring and are denoted with a P1 or P2 in the catalog.

WRT102/103: College Writing and Research (I and II)

The Writing 102 (three credits, fall) and Writing 103 (three credits, spring) sequence meets the outcomes of Writing 105 over two semesters. These courses are designed to feel like a single course, allowing you to benefit from a writing learning community with the same students and faculty in both semesters. While these are rigorous writing courses, they offer more embedded support, more time to practice writing, reading and research skills, and greater opportunities for drafts, feedback and revision. If you haven't practiced writing recently, prefer more time and support with your writing projects, or have less confidence in your writing process, you may benefit from enrolling in these courses.

Taken together, WRT102 and WRT103 complete the first-year core writing requirement and meet the same first-year writing outcomes as WRT105. You will receive credit toward graduation for both the fall and spring semesters.

WRT102 is a prerequisite to WRT103. You should plan to enroll in the spring for the same section (time, day, instructor) to complete the course of study you begin in the fall. Successful completion of WRT103 fulfills the core writing requirement.