Programs and Areas
First Year Writing Program
The First-Year Writing Program develops and administers English 110, OSU's first-year writing course, which is a required component of the General Education Curriculum (Writing and Related Skills). Though students in English 110 develop expected writing capabilities, the course is far more than a skills course. Students emerge from the course with knowledge of rhetorical analysis and production in addition to more sophisticated perspectives on chosen course themes and experience in writing and editing for publication
Taking its lead from a national movement in undergraduate research, English 110 on the Columbus Campus positions students in a Research I university setting by asking them to learn the conventions of academic research and writing while gaining expertise in a particular course topic. Students enrolled in English 110 focus on a single research topic throughout the quarter. Using a wide array of sources-many of which require sophisticated library skills to find, and many of which are located online in digital format-students produce a series of academic texts, including abstracts, annotations, critical responses, proposals, and, of course, traditional academic papers. These students work extensively with digital instructional materials, both alphabetic print and rich media. The curriculum concludes by asking students to reframe their research into a concise argument for Commonplace, an idea-networking site where university students come together in a peer review network as authors, critics, and editors to produce intelligent commentary on the social and cultural issues they find important.
In 2005, the First-Year Writing Program was awarded the "Writing Program Certificate of Excellence" by the National Council of Teachers of English and the Conference on College Composition and Communication for its innovative curriculum and its strength in preparing graduate students to teach writing at the college level.
