College & Advanced Writing Program

“Rhetoric” is a tool for generating and analyzing texts and asking critical questions about systems of power around given texts. By “texts,” we mean vehicles for any form of communication, be it written, spoken, visual, or musical.

In College and Advanced Writing, we ask students to acknowledge and characterize what makes a rhetorical situation: what motivates the response, who is it for, what is it designed to achieve, and how does the genre, delivery mode, and author’s knowledge and experience shape the message?  By developing these habits, students can become more discerning and reflective in their interpretation of information, and they can appreciate the ways that texts make the world.

The courses for Advanced Writing are divided into academic and professional categories (Arts and Letters, Engineering, Business, Social Sciences, etc.) with the goal of allowing students to understand how their disciplines and professions build and regulate knowledge, the genres they use to communicate with each other and the general public, and what the writing conventions reveal about their field’s shared values and goals.

Not only do students learn how to analyze rhetorical situations, they learn how to respond to them in ways that are appropriate and effective. For example, in College Writing, students practice writing professional memos to supervisors and professors, supporting a position in a public comment forum, and/or writing a letter to the editor of their hometown newspaper. In Advanced Writing, students use genres typical within their scholarly and professional fields, such as critical literature reviews, business or grant proposals, artist statements, and analysis and recommendation reports; they then learn how to translate technical jargon and make it engaging for public readers. Students also practice tailoring their resumes, cover letters, and personal statements to respond to specific opportunities.

According to the Association of College and Research Libraries, information literacy is “the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning” (ACRL Framework). In College and Advanced Writing courses, UMD faculty and librarians ask students to consider questions such as the following: 

1. How can we know what we don’t know?
2. Why is the research process iterative?
3. How can we recognize authority?
4. Why are some voices amplified and some voices marginalized in scholarly conversations?
5. How do we show that we value others’ work in our own?
6. What rights should we have as information users, owners, and creators?

We view discussions around these questions as particularly vital today, when information that is widely consumed is partisan, unvetted, and potentially hallucinated by generative AI.

We emphasize that writing is an iterative process, with specific goals for each stage: early drafts focus on developing and supporting an argument, later drafts focus on clarity and organization, and final drafts focus on shaping the language, tone, and document design for the intended genre and audience.

We also create opportunities to write collaboratively. College Writing introduces students to strategies for working and communicating with other students, and Advanced Writing introduces more specific strategies that are commonly used in professional fields, such as delegating roles in a Responsibility Matrix, scheduling and coordinating tasks in a Gantt Chart, resolving conflict with proactive communication, and evaluating group members’ contributions to the project.

Any student will be exempted from WRIT 1120 at UMD through acceptance of transfer courses if one of the following criteria is met:

1. The student has completed the first-year writing requirement at an accredited institution of higher education.
   Note: Colleges and Universities structure this requirement differently:  they may require one, two, or three courses, of anywhere from 3-5 credits each.  If the other institution requires two classes and the student completes only the first course in the sequence, the student may need to complete UMD’s WRIT 1120.
2. The student has scored a 32 or above on the ACT English exam.
3. The student has earned an Associate’s Degree from an accredited institution; (thereby the student is exempt from all of the Liberal Education Requirements at UMD).

Any student will be granted three credits for WRIT 1120 at UMD if one of the following criteria is met:

1. The student has scored a 4 or higher on the Educational Testing Service Advanced Placement examinations in Language and Composition. Effective April 1, 2017, UMD will no longer grant credit for WRIT 1120 (for any score) for the examination in English: Literature and Composition.
2. The student has scored a 63 or higher on the CLEP College Composition Exam. Effective May 12, 2023, UMD will no longer grant credit for WRIT 1120 for the CLEP College Composition Modular.
3. The student has earned a grade of C or higher on the International Baccalaureate Extended Essay.

For more information, visit the webpage of the Admissions office.

The quickly-evolving capabilities of generative AI make it tempting to imagine that most writing will soon be done by machines. However, we don’t see writing as a product, but as a cognitive, analytical, communicative, collaborative, and self-reflective process. In other words, “writing” is not just the final piece of work that someone produces; it is the thinking and learning process behind that final piece of work. UMD’s C&AWP courses help students develop those thinking and learning processes. Furthermore, when students learn how to think, write, and revise confidently on their own, they will be better positioned to decide whether to delegate certain writing tasks to machines, and to evaluate the quality of what they produce.

UMD’s College Writing (WRIT 1120) tends to be equivalent to what many other institutions offer as a second-semester first-year writing requirement. If you’re not sure, check Transferology. If you believe the course you took meets at least 70% of the learning outcomes for  WRIT 1120, you can complete this form to request a course transfer evaluation or petition a current decision. It’s helpful when you can provide a copy of the syllabus.

Go to Transferology to search for your previous institutions and enter the courses you took at the other institutions.  If you believe the course you took meets at least 70% of the learning outcomes for College and/or Advanced Writing, you can complete this form to request a course transfer evaluation or petition a current decision. It’s helpful when you can provide a copy of the syllabus.

We acknowledge that you wouldn’t have gotten into college without some writing skills. That said, writing is like any other skill: practice improves performance and confidence. College and Advanced Writing will give you practice identifying questions; finding answers; analyzing your readers' needs, knowledge, and attitudes about your topic; and preparing texts that use appropriate evidence, genres, tone, and media. It will also give you some specific project management tools to help you collaborate better with others. Finally, it aims to give you an understanding of your own process and how you can approach independent projects more effectively.

While writing may not be a defining feature of your future career, institutional researchers have found that writing skills can be a “gatekeeper” to positions with higher pay and more autonomy within a company or organization. That means writing skills may not get you the job, but they could help you to get promoted. Furthermore, from emails to performance evaluations to grant applications, many people are surprised by how much writing IS involved in their career. Finally, C&AWP courses focus on helping you develop the thinking and learning processes behind writing projects. The ability to plan, think critically, solve problems independently, and communicate clearly are among the skills most consistently sought by employers across fields.

We understand that not everyone speaks the same kind of English that people are expected to write in school. We who study Linguistics and Writing Studies call this kind of school dialect “Edited Standard Written English” (ESWE). It is well known that grammar drills tend to bore students and/or do little to improve usage. Instead, we teach the conventions of spelling, grammar, and mechanics in context, which means that we give students feedback and resources to learn conventions of ESWE to apply to the texts they are in the process of editing. We also recognize that the conventions of ESWE are not always appropriate for every writing situation, and we work with students to think about the conventions that best fit the variety of situations they might encounter.

A student learning outcome in College Writing is to “Articulate and employ effective strategies for interpreting difficult and substantive texts.” This means that when your instructor asks you to read articles and/or excerpts from books that you might find challenging, they will help you identify your purpose for reading, as well as how annotating and paraphrasing can help you better understand and remember what you read. Some instructors will require more reading than others, but you can certainly count on reading a lot about whichever topic you decide to research.  

Another student learning outcome in both College and Advanced Writing is “Collaborate with peers effectively,” which means learning to listen comprehensively to others, take initiative within group work, and cooperate as a team member. You can count on doing some collaboration with other students, while also learning methods for facilitating discussions, organizing and planning tasks, and distributing labor equitably. Many students report that the collaborative project in Advanced Writing is a surprisingly pleasant and beneficial experience.

In College and Advanced Writing you will mostly write for academic and professional purposes and audiences. If you like to express yourself through writing, consider taking fiction writing (ENGL 1116 and ENGL 3116), poetry writing (ENGL 1122 and ENGL 3122), and/or memoir and journal writing (WRIT 1106). If you take several of these courses, you can even earn a Creative Writing Certificate.