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Freshman Writing Seminar
Topic Started: Mar 31 2011, 08:42 PM (1,375 Views)
Littlekungfufighter
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For first-year students, the Institute offers First-Year Writing Seminars in one of the country's largest and most diverse programs in writing in the disciplines: each semester, over 100 different courses are taught in more than 30 departments and programs located in the humanities, social sciences, expressive arts, and sciences. Through introductory work in each seminar's particular field of study, students learn to write in a range of genres and in ways that emphasize clarity, coherence, intellectual force, and stylistic control.
All seminars pursue this common aim through small classes, with a maximum of seventeen students, and adherence to a program-wide set of guidelines.

Guidelines:
1.Seminars should require at least six—and at most nine—formal essays on new topics, totaling ca. 25 – 30 pages of polished prose.
2.No fewer than three of the 6 – 9 required essays should go through a process of development under the instructor’s guidance (e.g. revision, peer review, responses to readings, conferences).
3.All seminars spend ample classroom time (about half) on work directly related to writing.
4.Reading assignments in the course subject are kept under 75 pages per week to permit regular, concentrated work on writing.
5.All students meet in at least two individual conferences with the instructor.
First-Year Writing Seminar Learning Outcomes:
For a description of learning outcomes for FWSs, click HERE



College Writing Requirement:
In general, Cornell students are required to take two semesters of First-Year Writing Seminars. Architecture students take one seminar. Agriculture and Life Sciences students may take two first-year writing seminars or choose from among a variety of other courses to complete their requirement. Hotel students take one First-Year Writing Seminar. Most students fulfill the writing requirement in the first year.

Placement into Seminars:
Placement is by electronic submission of a ballot. http://fws.arts.cornell.edu. Students submit five choices: nearly 50% receive their first choice; fewer than 5% receive their last. Students may enroll in only one First-Year Writing Seminar per semester.

Students should aim to satisfy their First-Year Writing Seminar requirement during their first year. First-year students have priority access to spaces in First-Year Writing Seminars, and balloting for FWSs is open only to freshmen, sophomores, and transfer students; continuing juniors and seniors may add a FWS only during the add/drop period.

Staffing:
Over one-third of the seminars are taught by faculty (professorial or lecturer) located in the sponsoring departments. The remaining two-thirds of First-Year Writing Seminars are taught by graduate student teaching assistants, also located in the sponsoring departments.

Link: http://www.arts.cornell.edu/knight_institute/fws/fws.htm
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Littlekungfufighter
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I personally took GOVT: Causes of War and THEATER: Performance and the Five Senses for Freshman Writing Seminars when I was a freshman. I liked them both a lot.
Causes of War has a lot of readings, but it's really enriching. whereas Performance and the Five Senses has less readings, but a lot more to write
Edited by Littlekungfufighter, Apr 11 2011, 07:09 PM.
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KahluaFudge
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I took The Mystery in the Story with Stuart Davis. He's one cool dude. Our discussions were pretty chill but I feel like I actually did some substantial work in that class. There was a moderate amount of reading, but it was fun since it was mystery, and some of our essays were on movies, like Sherlock Holmes.
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Littlekungfufighter
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woo. that sounds like a fun class to take.. sadly i have already fulfilled my fws requirement, nor do i plan on taking another one..
but out of curiousity, what department was it under
Edited by Littlekungfufighter, Apr 11 2011, 07:09 PM.
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cl576
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I took Comparative Literature 1133 (SEM 104) Studies in Literature Theory: Touching Literature, and German Studies 1170 Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche.

Before coming to Cornell, I did not have the sightliest intention to take them because they are totally irrelevant to my majors... and as an international student, I was kind of worried about how my writing would compare to native speakers. However, they both turned out to be truly inspiring seminars and expanded my horizons to many new perspectives. I highly recommend the above classes... they are very rewarding if you don't mind the heavy readings :D
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mangocorn
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Littlekungfufighter
Apr 4 2011, 11:29 PM
woo. that sounds like a fun class to take.. sadly i have already fulfilled my fws requirement, nor do i plan on taking another one..
but out of curiousity, what department was it under
Mystery in the Story is offered by the English department, with several different instructors for the class (mine was Jill S. for Mystery in the Story ENGL1147). I liked the class as well, but discussion was lackluster since nobody wanted to talk. I didn't actually think my FWS helped my writing much since it seems like my TA's (psych dept, phil dept) and my FWS instructor did not "mark up" my paper so much.
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KahluaFudge
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Sorry Littlekungfufighter! I didn't notice that you'd asked me a question.
Stuart Davis is da bomb. Like seriously. I'd take another class with him just for fun. And he grades everything, not a TA.
Yeah our discussions were sometimes lame, but Stuart has a really quirky sense of humor.
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