This course provides first-year college students an introduction to academic inquiry. Its central purpose is to immerse students in the types of reading, writing, and critical thinking required by their new community – the university. Key elements of the course include understanding the rhetorical and cultural contexts that impact reading, writing, and learning; practicing the critical reading of academic texts; learning to develop insightful lines of inquiry and complex claims; and developing skill in the processes and conventions that lead to successful academic writing.

This course continues the academic inquiry and writing skills of WRI 1000 by incorporating the elements and standards of college-level research and writing within a disciplinary context. Students use writing throughout the term as a tool to investigate and communicate information and ideas and to approach and answer complex questions. Key elements include learning to develop good research questions and lines of inquiry; writing in appropriate disciplinary genres; understanding the proper use of primary and secondary sources; evaluating, summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing research; revising writing so as to develop and deepen ideas; and producing a culminating paper or project.

Students hired to work at the Research, Reading, & Writing Studio will study and put into practice pedagogies of tutoring writing. Typically offered: Autumn, Spring, Winter.

Selected writing assistants will serve as a mentor to first-year students in a section of WRI 1100 under the direction of the faculty member teaching the course.