The mission of the Program for Writing Across Campus is to offer discipline-linked writing courses that create small intellectual communities focused on students' development as writers. Through personalized instruction, including conferencing over writing in progress, we partner with our students to help them cultivate disciplinary and rhetorical knowledge, and confidence in their communication skills and practices. We celebrate the different communities and audiences that students want to engage with, and we respect their aims as composers. We see collaborative engagement over context-specific writing as an important means of fostering students' academic, professional, and personal success.
Technical and Professional Writing Courses
Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) courses aim to help you learn skills to communicate effectively and efficiently in your professional life. The course introduces you to the rhetorical principles and composing practices necessary for writing basic professional and technical documents, designing and analyzing technical research, and communicating about technical issues in common documents such as policies, processes, and reports.
| Course | Description | Sample Syllabus |
|---|---|---|
| English 288 | Engages in professional genres and communication practices in light of emerging technologies. Students produce texts that prepare them to enter professional spaces. | ENGL288 Syllabus |
| English 289 | Theory and practice of written, visual, and digital writing within business contexts. | ENGL289 Syllabus |
| English 388 | Prepares students to become conscious and conscientious communicators in various modes, platforms, and professions. | ENGL388 Syllabus |
Linked Courses
Linked PWAC courses are connected with large lecture courses in all kinds of disciplines, ranging from Art History to Biology. Students enroll in both courses simultaneously. PWAC courses engage some of the concepts, texts, and methodologies from the linked lecture course as the basis for assignments that help students deepen their learning through writing.
| Course | Description | Sample Syllabus |
|---|---|---|
| English 197 | Expository writing based on material presented in a specified humanities lecture course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required. | ENGL197 Syllabus |
| English 198 | Expository writing based on material presented in a specified social science lecture course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytic prose. Concurrent registration in specified course required. | ENGL198 Syllabus |
| English 199 | Expository writing based on material presented in a specific natural science lecture course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required. | ENGL199 Syllabus |
| English 297 | Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified humanities course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required. | ENGL297 Syllabus |
| English 298 | Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified social science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required. | ENGL298 Syllabus |
| English 299 | Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified natural science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required. | ENGL299 Syllabus |
Unlinked Courses
Unlinked courses are not linked with specific lecture courses, but are still grounded within a disciplinary domain, such as the Humanities, social sciences, or natural sciences. Like the linked courses, unlinked courses offer students the opportunity to think about how knowledge is built in certain fields of study, and practice their writing in those disciplinary contexts. Since they are not tied to a particular lecture course, however, they may offer a bit more scheduling flexibility for students.
| Course | Description | Sample Syllabus |
|---|---|---|
| English 296 | Develops critical literacy in the diffuse but interlocking disciplines of the natural sciences. Through analysis and composition of various texts, students become authoritative participants in scientific discourse while also becoming familiar with ways that Western values are embedded and centered (often invisibly) in the sciences and its related institutions. | ENGL296 Syllabus |
| English 297 | Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified humanities course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required. | ENGL297 Syllabus |
| English 298 | Expository writing based on materials presented in a specified natural science course. Assignments include drafts of papers to be submitted in the specified course, and other pieces of analytical prose. Concurrent registration in the specified course required. | ENGL298 Syllabus |