Each of our International classes is a dynamic reading and writing community made up of students from various schools across the university led by an instructor who is sensitive to the needs of English-language learners. We draw from the same inquiry-driven curriculum as other EWP classes, with an emphasis on readings, lessons, and assignments that account for our students’ multilingual and multicultural experiences. Through an ethos of experimentation and creativity, students become practiced in the rhetorical functions of academic writing while also paying close attention to the grammar, syntax, function, and style of academic English.
If you place into Introduction to International Writing, you will have an immersive experience with listening, speaking and reading that will form a solid foundation for your academic writing practice. In International Writing Workshop 1, you will explore a variety of evidence—from written to experiential to visual—in order to leap beyond the five-paragraph essay and TOEFL/SAT essay you might have learned in high school. During class conversations and group and individual work, you will practice skills including close reading, forming questions, analysis, organizing ideas, research, building an argument, and revision in order to challenge your understanding of what an essay can do. In International Writing Workshop 2, you will deepen this knowledge through independent research and articulating all you are learning with a sensitivity to who you are writing for and why.
Across the sequence of classes you take with us, you will learn to shape your uncertainty and curiosity in order to write a variety of essays in order to gain confidence in voicing your interests as they fit into your reality—while at the same time having the space to connect to work you are doing in your other classes and reflect on the cultural codes of the American university. By working with you to develop practices of reading, writing, and speaking that combine conceptual thinking in—and about—writing with pragmatic language skills, our goal is to prepare you for a global landscape where flexibility of communication is key to personal and professional fulfillment.
