Essential Lessons
Style & Genre
Our Essential Lessons are a sequence of lessons that form the backbone of the Writing Program curriculum, illustrating what we want all students to learn across our program’s diverse course topics. WR 15x asks students to communicate about the same research project in two different genres, offering them the opportunity to explore how “good writing” […]
Research as Forming a New Question
Our Essential Lessons are a sequence of lessons that form the backbone of the Writing Program curriculum, illustrating what we want all students to learn across our program’s diverse course topics. Students often believe that the most important thing about writing a research paper is having a strong thesis and therefore try to produce that […]
BEAM/BEAT: Rhetorical Ways of Thinking About Sources
Our Essential Lessons are a sequence of lessons that form the backbone of the Writing Program curriculum, illustrating what we want all students to learn across our program’s diverse course topics. This lesson helps students consider four different ways they might use a source: they might rely on it for information, analyze it as evidence, […]
Entering a Disciplinary Conversation
Our Essential Lessons are a sequence of lessons that form the backbone of the Writing Program curriculum, illustrating what we want all students to learn across our program’s diverse course topics. WR 120 introduces students to academic writing and highlights some similarities and differences between academic arguments and arguments in other genres. This first lesson […]
Sentences Tell Stories: A Principle of Clarity
Our Essential Lessons are a sequence of lessons that form the backbone of the Writing Program curriculum, illustrating what we want all students to learn across our program’s diverse course topics. Readers of English find sentences easier to understand if they begin with a short, concrete subject followed quickly by a specific verb. The clarity […]
Generating and Structuring an Argument through Acknowledgment and Response
Our Essential Lessons are a sequence of lessons that form the backbone of the Writing Program curriculum, illustrating what we want all students to learn across our program’s diverse course topics. Students often believe that ideas and evidence that might contradict their claim will weaken their argument, so they either ignore such things or present […]
Standard Rhetorical Moves of Introductions
Our Essential Lessons are a sequence of lessons that form the backbone of the Writing Program curriculum, illustrating what we want all students to learn across our program’s diverse course topics. Most students know that they should include a thesis statement in the introduction to an academic essay, but they may not know that academic […]
Global Citizenship & Intercultural Literacy (ELL)
Our Essential Lessons are a sequence of lessons that form the backbone of the Writing Program curriculum, illustrating what we want all students to learn across our program’s diverse course topics. International students in WR 112 learn more about and start analyzing global diversity with respect to language and culture. This lesson serves as an […]
Argument-Driven Comparative Analysis (ELL)
Our Essential Lessons are a sequence of lessons that form the backbone of the Writing Program curriculum, illustrating what we want all students to learn across our program’s diverse course topics. Bringing two texts into conversation with one another is a key aspect of WR 112, and a significant challenge to students, who might be […]
The Language of Summary and Analysis (ELL)
Our Essential Lessons are a sequence of lessons that form the backbone of the Writing Program curriculum, illustrating what we want all students to learn across our program’s diverse course topics. Summarizing and analyzing texts can be challenging for all students, but multilingual students need additional help with the language of the task. This lesson […]