University Core Writing courses are intended to help students become skilled analytical readers; writers of clear, focused, graceful, mechanically correct, and appropriately complex prose; and competent researchers. Most students take UCWR 110: Writing Responsibly during the Fall or Spring semester of their first year. Concurrently, some students will be required to enroll in UCWR 109: Writing Responsibly Writing Lab, which offers additional workshop-based support for students.  The skills learned in UCWR 109/110 are essential to a student’s success in college courses as well as Loyola’s Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Program. A final course grade of “C-“ or better is required to complete the University Core Writing requirement in UCWR 110. Students who do not earn this grade must repeat the course in the semester immediately following. 

 

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 UCWR 109: Writing Responsibly Writing Lab

(3.00 credits)

Students who receive a ‘219’ on their Writing Placement Assessment (WPA) must register for UCWR 109 and UCWR 110 courses concurrently. The former is a co-requisite workshop-based lab that underpins the academic writing and skills students are working on in UCWR 110. The lab section will provide additional resources, support, and individualized instruction on the content, skills, and assignments in the core UCWR 110 course, including the steps of brainstorming, drafting, peer review, revision, and final editing. Via in-class writing, activities, and conferences, students will further strengthen skills in academic summary, analysis, synthesis and research strategies in the context of the essays they are writing for UCWR 110.

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UCWR 110: Writing Responsibly

(3.00 credits)

This University Core Writing course aims to teach students to write clearly and effectively, through the steps of brainstorming, peer review, revision, and final editing. Students will learn to articulate, organize, and support written positions as well as how to read texts carefully and critically and to recognize how various perspectives inform interpretations of texts. Students will see the importance of reading, writing, listening and speaking well. By collaborating with others as well as seeing the value of revision and the recursive nature of the writing process, students will be better prepared for classes across Loyola. The course will promote grammatical, compositional, methodological, and rhetorical skills in the service of effective communication. As a result, the course will have at least four writing assignments that add up to approximately 30 pages of writing over the semester. Papers will include: 1) summary/response, 2) analysis, 3) synthesis, and 4) a researched argument project (which will include a proposal and annotated bibliography). These assignments will receive timely feedback from instructors with the goal of effective revision by students. An instructor may use peer-input for the process of revision, but such input will not replace input from the instructor.

 

By the end of the Writing Seminar, students will:

• Use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, and communicating.
• Understand a writing assignment as a series of tasks-- including finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources to clearly formulate a claim.
• Respond appropriately to different audiences and different rhetorical situations.
• Develop strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proof-reading.
• Understand writing as an open process that permits writers to use later invention and re-thinking to revise work. 
• Use standard written English clearly and effectively.