LSA Undergraduate Student Services Reference
Manual
Chapter 4 – Programs
Sweetland Writing Center
In pursuit of its goal of invigorating writing across the University, Sweetland faculty and
staff:
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Help students choose an appropriate first-year writing course in a program
called Directed Self-Placement;
Teach Writing Practicum, the course that prepares students for first-year-writing;
Operate the Writing Workshop, which provides consultation to students who seek
help with academic writing;
Train Peer Writing Tutors to help students with their writing and to consult with
students at the Peer Tutoring Center and via Sweetland's Online Writing and
Learning service (OWL);
Help students develop the multiple literacies necessary to be effective
communicators in a digital age.
Offer training to graduate students (junior fellows) and faculty members (senior
fellows) in the semester-long Sweetland Writing Center Seminar on composition
theory and writing pedagogy;
Administer the Dissertation Writing Institute for graduate students who have
slowed down in the writing stage of their dissertation.
Approve and oversee departmental offerings intended to fulfill the
College's Upper-Level Writing Requirement by means of the Advanced Writing
in the Disciplines Program (AWDP);
Train graduate student instructors and provide consultation to faculty in Advanced
Writing in the Disciplines courses;
Maintain a Bibliography of Articles Related to Teaching Writing (articles are
available to instructors upon request), and a library of books and journals on
composition, writing, and teaching writing;
Interact with high schools to foster the exchange of knowledge and experience;
and
Conduct research to improve the understanding of writing at the university.
The purpose of the College's writing program is to provide students with an introduction
to college-level academic writing that will address any deficiencies in their writing skills
and prepare students for writing successfully both in their undergraduate years and more
generally in future educational and professional settings. Underlying Michigan's Writing
Program are several beliefs: that students need practice in order to learn to write well;
that motivation is important, because writing is most readily learned through practice;
that the desire to write can be motivated by the desire to learn, especially when students
are learning what they want and need to know. These principles mandate more than a
single course in composition for students; for the College, they mandate the involvement
of faculty from all disciplines and departments in the teaching of writing.
First-Year Writing Program
The goal of the First-Year Writing Requirement is to teach students the discipline and
skills needed for college writing. Without these skills, college students can find it
difficult to master the art of argument and to achieve the academic sophistication that
University of Michigan courses demand.
First-Year Writing courses assign writing and revising tasks designed to help students
learn to:
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summarize and characterize essays and nonfiction narratives;
investigate issues through course readings and materials gathered through
research;
evaluate arguments;
develop arguments, taking positions on issues and proposing solutions to
problems;
support arguments and state claims in one's own words;
attribute ideas to their authors and cite sources; and
use group resources to work collaboratively and to revise extensively.
Students may satisfy the First-Year Writing Requirement by earning a course grade of Cor better in one of the following ways:
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Students may take the two-credit Writing Practicum (SWC 100/102) followed by
an approved four-credit First-Year Writing course or
Students may take an approved four-credit First-Year Writing course in the
College
The First-Year Writing Requirement should be completed in the first year.
Upper-Level Writing Requirement
The Upper-Level Writing Requirement (ULWR) is generally completed within the
student's concentration and aims to help LSA students recognize and master the writing
conventions of their chosen discipline, so that, upon graduation, they are able to
understand and communicate effectively the central concepts, approaches, and materials
of their discipline. AWDP is based upon the assumption that the best way to master
disciplinary knowledge is to express that knowledge in the form of clear and incisive
writing.
Sweetland's Advanced Writing in the Disciplines Program (AWDP) approves
departmental curricular offerings that satisfy the ULWR. A course approved to meet the
requirement one term is not necessarily approved in subsequent terms. See the LSA
Course Guide for the list of approved ULWR courses for any particular term.
Writing Support
Sweetland’s aim is to help writers become more confident, skilled, and knowledgeable
about writing and the subjects they write about.
Sweetland faculty and peer tutors supplement formal writing instruction by working, free
of charge, with students to understand assignments, develop ideas, support arguments and
claims, cite sources, and revise at the paragraph and sentence level.
SOURCE: Sweetland Writing Center web site at http://www.lsa.umich.edu/swc/.