First Year Seminars and Junior Seminars
The First Year Seminar (FSEM) courses are committed to fostering critical thinking, reading, writing, and speaking. FSEM courses are designed to be writing-intensive, meaning that the courses encourage and assist learning by means of writing. This writing-to-learn approach helps students figure out the ways to think and write and speak about a subject.
The Junior Seminar courses are similarly committed to helping students develop their skills at critical reading, speaking, and thinking. As writing-intensive courses, Junior Seminars employ the same writing-to-learn pedagogy for more advanced students.
Assignments in FSEM and JS courses run the gamut, from brief summary paragraphs to lists of questions generated by a given reading to producing detailed lab reports and research essays, to focusing on specific disciplinary questions asked by teachers in their academic areas.
Click here for the Writing Intensive Curriculum resource pages.
Click here for resources and suggestions for developing a FSEM using writing as a teaching tool.