Foundations of Academic Discourse

These are just a few styles of writing students encounter during their studies at Grove City College. In preparation, the required course Foundations of Academic Discourse (WRIT 101) is typically taken during a student's first year of study and cultivates habits of discernment, ethical engagement, and cultural awareness that contribute to their formation as a critical thinker and citizen.

WRIT 101 blends traditional lecture with interactive workshops, peer review activities, and one-on-one conferencing with professors. It also gives students the rhetorical skills to advance within their discipline and to apply crucial analytical skills in a variety of professional environments. Students who complete all coursework and assignments in WRIT 101 should be able to:

• Formulate a clear focal point for a written document
• Use various rhetorical strategies to develop ideas
• Write focused, unified, and coherent paragraphs
• Structure an essay to achieve specific writing goals
• Write clear, concise, and grammatically correct prose
• Exercise critical thinking to evaluate multiple perspectives on complex issues and to formulate and explain their own perspective
• Use library research tools to locate, evaluate, and integrate authoritative sources into their writing

Key Goal

A key goal of WRIT 101 is to dispel the myth that good writers are born, not made. Most professional writers report that their best work happens in the revision stage, after a concentrated effort to re-envision and reshape the raw material of an earlier draft.

WRIT 101 addresses all stages of the writing process, from idea development to drafting and from revising for improved content to editing for grammar and style. In preparation for the research writing required in many courses, WRIT 101 also introduces students to the basics of critical thinking and information literacy.