First-Year Courses

The first semester of college is an exciting time for you. With that excitement may also come uncertainty, new choices and decisions, and anxiety about new people, classes and environment. As you make the transition to Curry College, the Curry Launch course is a great way to help you learn about yourself and develop strategies that will ensure success throughout your college career.

Curry Launch is a 1-credit course required of all new students designed to assist you with your transition to the college experience. Throughout the course, you are introduced to methods and resources to promote success in college, and opportunities to discover how you learn, relate, and make choices. Topics in the course focus on the value and purpose of higher education, academic development, organizational skills, Curry’s course learning management system and e-portfolio systems, and wellness topics such as stress management, drug abuse, sexual assault, relationships, and personal well-being. Campus life and support systems for academics and wellness will be introduced.

Meet the Curry Launch Faculty

The First Year Inquiry Seminar is the cornerstone course of Curry's General Education program.  The FYI introduces students to thinking in the liberal arts through examination of topical, relevant, real-world issues.  Students will have to opportunity to select seminar topics of interest through the new student advising survey.  The seminars have no more than 17 students and are taught by experienced faculty who have a passion for teaching first year students.

• First-Year Inquiry Courses and Descriptions
• First-Year Inquiry Learning Outcomes (See Gen Ed Learning Outcomes)
• Meet the First-Year Course Faculty

WRIT 1060 The Academic Writing Process

(3 Credits) Guides students through the process of academic writing, including focusing their ideas, constructing effective essays, and finding their voices.  Emphasizes the importance of purpose, audience, and tone in all writing. Teaches students to revise in order to develop further complexity and depth in their written work. Enhances students' ability to detect and correct errors in grammar and mechanics. Provides opportunities for students to write personal narratives and reflections, responses to readings, argument/persuasive essays, and essays that introduce research and citation. Helps students gain confidence in reading, writing, and discussion skills. (Prerequisite: Completion of Writing Assessment. Note you must pass WRIT 1060 with a C- or above to register for WRIT 1280.)

Learning Outcomes:

Each student in The Academic Writing Process will have the opportunity to:

• Complete prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing for at least three formal essays in addition to completing lower-stakes writing assignments. At least one of the formal essays will be a minimum of three pages in length.
• Develop organized, unified, and coherent essays.
• Develop a thesis /argument and support it with specifics as appropriate to the writing context.
• Progress toward proficiency in writing in formats appropriate to varied academic disciplines, including forms that incorporate some research and source citation.
• Demonstrate critical reading skills, including identifying main ideas and summarizing key points
• Demonstrate effective use of grammar and mechanics, such as punctuation, varied sentence structures, and spelling.
• Present information and ideas orally at least once during the semester.
• Produce a culminating project that incorporates the above outcomes.

WRIT 1400 General Education: Reading, Writing, Research I
         

(3 credits) This course introduces students to reading and writing at the college level.  Emphasis on the process of composing source-based essays to a specific audience and purpose.  This course will present strategies for critical reading, purposeful revision, and reflection within a clear writing process. Time will be spent working on presenting ideas with clarity and correctness.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Respond appropriately in writing to a variety of different rhetorical situations (considering purpose, audience, context, exigencies) and in response to a variety of texts:
• Practice the habits of revision through multiple drafts including giving and responding to feedback;
• Develop an essay with a supported thesis in a coherent argument that analyzes differing views and arrives at a conclusion based on broad analysis of evidence;
• Locate, evaluate, incorporate, and document research sources in their writing appropriately at an introductory level;
• Critically read a variety of texts and reflect in writing on their own literacy;
• Observe written conventions of punctuation, grammar, diction, and syntax through careful editing strategies

WRIT 1500 General Education: Reading, Writing, Research II

(3 credits) Advancing concepts introduced in WRIT I, this course focuses on research writing at the college level.  Emphasis will be on developing a sound research process from inquiry to final product using strategies for applying research methods in order locate, critically read, and evaluate diverse texts (scholarly, popular, print, media). Focus will be on presenting research in a comprehensive research writing project using appropriate rhetorical conventions. 

Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Demonstrate academic research and writing skills in essays and projects to participate in a scholarly conversation;
• Demonstrate critical reading through a knowledge of the forms and functions of a variety of texts;
• Follow a research writing process that includes developing a topic, locating and evaluating sources (including peer-reviewed), composing in response to those sources, and revising and reflecting on that process;
• Show sustained development and application of reading, writing, and research skills at the college level through an understanding of documentation and academic dishonesty; Observe written conventions of punctuation, grammar, diction, and syntax through careful editing strategies.

Student instructors are upper-class students who partner with a faculty member to lead a section of a First-Year course. Student instructors offer students in the class their perspective on issues that first year students face and offer advice and identify resources that may be of help to students in the class. Become a student instructor and impact the lives of first year students.

In order to be considered for a position as a student instructor, students must:

• be a sophomore, junior or senior
• have a minimum overall 2.75 GPA
• complete the application for student instructors
• for new student instructors - obtain 2 letters of recommendation