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Description:

First Year Seminar courses explore broad questions in the liberal arts and sciences.  They are writing-intensive, and restricted in enrollment to encourage discussion and active learning.  The small class size allows instructors to work closely with writing, and encourages students to work cooperatively, creating a small community of learners.  Through the emphasis on engaged participation, the seminars should challenge students to take responsibility for their own education.

The First Year Seminar introduces students to writing as a process, writing as a mode of learning, and academic writing forms and skills.  As such, it also partially fulfills the Written Communication requirement (p. 18) in the Liberal Studies Curriculum.  First Year Seminars will have a cap of 15 to allow the instructor time to respond to student writing each week and meet individually with students to discuss their writing at least twice each term. 

Guidelines:

1. First-Year Seminars focus on various topics, but they should all be similar in their emphasis on discussion and their extensive use of writing.
2. Topics should encourage examination of large questions.  Ideally, they should have interdisciplinary dimension and provoke reflection on cultural diversity.
3. Courses must have frequent writing, ideally twice a week. This should include:
   1. Various kinds of informal writing designed to encourage active reading and discussion (e.g., freewriting, journals, reading or lecture summaries, commentaries, annotations, question-and-response).
   2. Preparatory stages of writing for formal papers (topic-generating exercises, reading notes, proposals, outlines, drafts).
   3. Formal papers: a minimum of 3, totaling 10-20 pages.  Formal papers must include at least one analytical/persuasive essay, but may also include other prose forms.
4. Courses must provide clear, written criteria for assessment and discussion of writing and must make use of texts and student models demonstrating those criteria.
5. Courses must include weekly opportunities for feedback on writing, from peers and the instructor (e.g., written comments, small-group discussions, workshops, individual conferences).
6. Courses must include revisions involving feedback.
7. Courses must introduce research skills and citation forms, in collaboration with Library staff.
8. Courses must address academic integrity, plagiarism, and the College’s polices in this regard.

First Year Seminar Learning Outcomes:

Students will demonstrate:

The ability to engage in active learning at the college level.

The ability to use writing as a tool for learning.

An understanding of what makes “good writing” for a general academic audience, and the ability to give peers feedback on their writing using that understanding.

The ability to manage the writing process (prewriting, drafting, feedback, revision, editing, and proofreading) to produce finished products.

The ability to generate a thesis on their own and support it with convincing evidence and reasoning in a formal academic essay that has cohesion, coherence, and voice.

An understanding of academic integrity and the ability to integrate and cite sources.

A knowledge of basic research skills.

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