WELCOME TO THE WRITING PROGRAM Rutgers University, Newark
137 Conklin Hall 175 University Avenue Newark, New Jersey 07102-1801 Phone: 973/353-5850 Fax: 973/353-5852 write@andromeda.rutgers.edu

Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University, Newark

Elizabeth Mitchell, Interim Director, Writing Program

Jennifer Arena, Associate Director, Writing Program

Patricia Bender, Manager, Writing Center

Farrukh Salikhov, Program Coordinator

 

Welcome to the online home of the Rutgers-Newark Writing Program, a hub of information and support for all students in writing courses on the Newark campus. There are areas with information of particular interest to New Students, Current Students, and Faculty.

Mission Statement

The mission of the Writing Program at Rutgers-Newark is:

•to lay the foundation for students to develop the academic writing, reading, critical thinking, and research skills that they will need to succeed in upper-level courses at a research university

• to prepare students for long-term success in a competitive global marketplace that places a premium on excellent reading and writing skills

• to awaken in students the worth of written expression as a form of creativity, serious thought, and personal expression

• to foster an understanding of the reciprocal relationship between critical reading, writing, and thinking

• to encourage students to use reading and writing as a means of connecting with the university’s vibrant urban environment, and of participating actively in evolving communities, both local and global, built on open discourse and exchange of ideas.

Pedagogical Principles

Students’ success in all courses during their college career is dependent upon their ability to read academic texts, to think about them critically, to write about them insightfully, and to connect one’s own ideas to those of others through the appropriate use of research skills. These are exactly the activities that we focus on in Writing Program courses, which form the foundation on which later courses will build. The core mission of the Writing Program is to create, implement, and assess a unified writing curriculum which addresses all these skills holistically, and which connects fruitfully to writing courses in the disciplines.

Our pedagogy stresses:

• Analytical writing based on close textual readings
• Development of a student’s own planning/drafting/feedback/revision process
• In-class writing as an essential skill
• Reading comprehension and critical thinking as equal in importance to writing per se
• Encouraging students, both in class and in written assignments, to develop their own line of argument, not just summarizing the text or repeating an instructor’s opinions.
• Preparation for upper-level academic work in a research university

 

Placement

New students, both freshmen and transfers, are placed into Writing Program courses based on a combination of
• the Accuplacer test from the College Board, an online placement exam administered on the Rutgers-Newark campus,
• previous writing tests, including Verbal SAT scores, and
• previous performance in college-level writing courses, including freshman composition at other institutions.

More information about Placement Procedures

Courses Offered

Depending on the results of these three measures, students will enroll in:

•Our two-semester writing sequence required of all first year students.
• English 101 English Composition I: Analysis and Argument”
• English 102 English Composition II: Interpretation, Synthesis, and Research

• Our Honors Composition courses, offered in cooperation with the Honors College:
• English 103 Honors Composition I
• English 104 Honors Composition II

• Our preparatory courses for students who need to work on their reading and writing skills prior to enrolling in English 101:
• Communication Skills 142: Basic Writing and Reading Strategies
• Communication Skills 143: Academic Reading and Writing

For more specific information on a particular course, see the Unified Writing Curriculum

Academic Requirements

All students are required to take one writing course per semester until they have completed their freshman composition requirement. Students enrolled in all Writing Program courses must receive a C or better in order to receive credit for passing the course.

In some cases, students with marginal grades on the English 101 final exam may be permitted to register for English 102 + a once-a-week workshop, with the recommendation of the 101 instructor. Such students will receive a temporary D in English 101 until they successfully complete the workshop in the following semester, while they are taking English 102.

FASN English Composition Requirement--from Rutgers-Newark Undergraduate Catalog

Support Services

Throughout a student’s enrollment at Rutgers, we stand ready to help with tutoring in the Writing Center, with semester-long intensive writing workshops attached to particular courses, and with software solutions to provide practice in specific writing skills.

Our semester-long Intensive Writing Workshops providing supplemental instruction and support attached to specific courses
• Intensive Writing Workshops: for English 101 students
• “Transition Workshops”: for English 102 students

Writing Center Website

Multilingual Learners

We provide specialized instruction and support to help students with diverse language backgrounds learn academic English. We also work with the Program in American Language Studies (PALS), to provide ESL solutions for students who require more intensive language study before taking our writing courses.

• Multi-lingual Learners: specialized instruction and support to help students with diverse language backgrounds learn academic English
• Communication Skills 142 for Multi-lingual Learners and Others
• Communication Skills 143 for Multi-lingual Learners and Others
• English 101 for Multi-lingual Learners and Others
• We cooperate with the PALS program course in Grammar and Composition for ESL students.

• Support Services:
•Tutoring, workshops
•Software available online and in the PALS lab

• Writing Across the Curriculum: supervising and supporting upper-level writing intensive courses in all departments

Writing Across the Curriculum

After completing freshman composition, students must also fulfill a Writing Across the Curriculum requirement by taking at least two “writing intensive” courses that are taught in various subject fields, one of which must be in the student’s major. Scientists write differently from social scientists, who write differently from academics in the humanities, and students will be asked to do all of these kinds of writing during their undergraduate career, and beyond.

A list of writing intensive courses, and much further information of interest to students, faculty, and administratorsmay be found each semester on our Writing Across the Curriculum website