Course descriptions

WRIT 002: Craft of Prose

This seminar fulfills the writing requirement, follows the same curriculum and has the same workload, assessment process and standards as all other writing seminars at Penn. However, seminar enrollment is capped at 12 and instruction includes a significant amount of individualized attention and guidance. While each session has a topic, the emphasis is on the study and practice of writing. Students in the Craft of Prose sections get considerable feedback and mentoring from tutors as well as their instructor. This, along with practice, can significantly accelerate students' writing skills.

The Craft of Prose seminars are best suited to students who might answer "yes" to two or more of the following:

• lack confidence in some of the fundamentals of writing, such as grammar
• have difficulty finding things to write about when they are given a writing assignment
• do not like to write or are anxious about their writing
• do not like to read or are anxious about reading and analyzing advanced texts
• did not have much writing practice or feedback and guidance on their writing in high school (fewer than 4 pages of writing per week on average)
• would rather avoid classes that assign much reading and writing because they expect they will not do well in such classes
• scored below 670 on their writing SATs
• anticipate needing a fair amount of individual feedback
• tended to earn significantly higher grades for their creative writing than for their critical writing

WRIT 011: Global English

This seminar fulfills the writing requirement, follows the same curriculum, and has the same workload, assessment process and standards as all other writing seminars at Penn. The Global English seminars focus on a scholarly topic within the field of global English -- for example, studies of films or literature written in English by non-native speakers; global human rights; digital culture; and other topics that are published in English but written by and for non-native as well as native speakers of the language. Along with this global focus, what distinguishes the Global English seminars is that they are intended for international students and sensitive to their needs, including instruction in the conventions and demands of American English college writing. International students especially enjoy these small seminars in their first year at Penn because they provide an international community that is also adjusting to life and college in the States.

Students who find the Global English seminars best suited to their needs include those who:

• may have attended American or English schools, but have not studied American English writing in the contiguous United States
• are not native speakers of American English
• scored below 670 on their writing SAT
• are fluent in English but struggle with certain aspects of American English, such as articles or verb tenses
• would benefit from specific instruction in such issues as plagiarism, citation, and the organization and voice expected of American English college work

WRIT 012 to 099

These seminars are similar to the second-semester writing seminars taught at other universities. The assumption in these seminars is that students are fluent speakers and writers of American English and are knowledgeable about its basic conventions (organizational structure, plagiarism, spelling, etc). These seminars are best suited to students who:

• are confident writers, who may make an occasional error but are generally in control of the fundamentals (grammar, usage, thesis, paragraph construction)
• are confident readers, capable of analyzing and writing about English texts independently
• have had considerable writing practice and guidance in high school (an average of 4 or more pages per week)
• anticipate needing some individual guidance from tutors or instructors, but not frequent meetings with either
• earned above 670 on their SAT writing test