MU's Three-Part Writing Requirement

The University of Missouri is committed to cultivating a rich writing culture, one that sustains inquiry in and across the disciplines as well as in public arenas. To this end, MU students must satisfy a three-part writing requirement: English 1000 (First-year Writing, taught primarily by English faculty) and two writing-intensive (WI) courses (taught primarily by faculty "in the disciplines"). Ideally, MU students engage in writing in many other classes, not just in these three required courses. By continuing to link writing to each new learning situation, students grow as writers.

Looked at this way, writing is not a set of discrete skills to be mastered once and for all in some introductory or remedial class; rather, it is a dynamic medium for learning and thinking, one that is used in slightly different ways with slightly different constraints in each learning situation. Given that different disciplines ask different questions, use different methods to investigate them, and have different standards of precision, then no single course can teach students all of the possible ways to write and think. This applies to English 1000 as well as to WI classes.

How English 1000 relates to Writing Intensive Courses

Both of the programs overseeing writing instruction at MU understand that non-literary writing instruction is constrained by purpose and context and therefore is not generalizable. The difference between the First-year Writing Program (FWP) and the Campus Writing Program (CWP) is not that one delivers general writing instruction and the other delivers particular writing instruction, for both programs deliver writing instruction constrained by particular contexts. Rather, they differ in terms of scope and emphasis.

Scope: Few faculty in the disciplines are prepared to devote the time and attention to writing that faculty in the FWP provide. Teaching writing is the primary, even if not the only, mission of the FWP. Students are likely to receive more attention to their writing in English 1000 than in any other college class (although exceptions exist).

Emphasis: While all faculty who use writing attend to both writing and content, faculty in the disciplines focus on the content and use writing as a means to that end, while faculty in the FWP focus on writing and use some particular content to explore one kind of writing in depth.

Contact Us

For more information about the composition program at the University of Missouri, Columbia, please contact:

address: 107 Tate Hall, Columbia, MO 65211-1500
phone: 573.882.6421 | fax: 573.882.5785 | department email: umcenglish@missouri.edu

website email: englishweb@missouri.edu
maintained by Sarah Zurhellen

English Department | College of Arts and Science | University of Missouri
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