The University Writing Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks promotes creative and critical thinking in service of student success in their future written coursework. We contribute to students building a foundation for lifelong learning and civic engagement. Our student-centered classrooms use rhetorically-based inquiry in order to foster critical language awareness.
The University Writing Program is responsible for the “First-Year Writing Sequence,” a pair of courses on academic writing that is required of all students. This sequence, which consists of English 111x and either English 211x or 213x, fulfills the “written communication’ graduation requirement for students; these courses must also address certain core outcomes of UAF General Education. At this time, we have reviewed the current, under-review, core outcomes, and have aligned our University Writing Program with three of the four outcomes.
- To develop intellectual and practical skills across the curriculum, including inquiry and analysis, critical and creative thinking, and problem solving;
- To acquire tools for effective civic engagement in local through global contexts, including ethical reasoning and intercultural competence;
- To integrate and apply learning, including synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized studies, adapting them to new settings, questions, and responsibilities, and forming a foundation for lifelong learning.