What is college writing?

The College Writing Program offers instruction in writing and rhetoric to students across campus.  Taught by faculty in the English and Creative Writing department, College Writing courses are designed to cultivate writing skills and introduce rhetorical concepts that help students successfully engage a broad array of writing challenges in their academic work and beyond. 

We see the mission of College Writing as three-fold, centered on critical thinking, academic inquiry, and rhetorical citizenship.  We help students:

  1. develop, deepen, and refine their ideas in and through writing; 

  2. practice and understand the conventions, genres, and habits of mind that characterize academic writing; and,

  3. articulate their social, cultural, and civic identities as participants in larger public discussions.

So if you’re enrolled in a College Writing course, our hope is that you’ll develop your ability to think through and polish ideas that matter to you in writing, present them effectively for your other college courses, and articulate them persuasively for the larger world around you. Your work in this course will prepare you not only for your academic writing, but for writing in your larger professional and civic lives as well.

We have many campus partners in this enterprise.  The Writing Center offers strong, thoughtful peer-tutoring support for student writers, and Penfield Library offers instruction in research and citation for students in all ENG 102 courses. SUNY Oswego’s unusually rigorous Writing Across the Curriculum requirement ensures that all students will take at least five courses involving substantial writing in their majors, thus involving virtually all faculty on campus in the teaching of written discourse. The Writing Fellows Program provides support for this requirement, offering faculty across campus assistance from experienced teachers of college-level writing as they use writing in their courses.