The goal of the First-Year Writing Requirement is to prepare students to write in diverse academic contexts. As a broad preparation for the range of writing tasks students will encounter at the University of Michigan and beyond, FYWR courses emphasize evidenced, academic writing in a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. This course is foundational for students to master the kind of analysis and argumentation found in sophisticated academic writing.
Students should complete a First-Year Writing Requirement course in their first year, and must earn a C- or higher to meet the requirement. This requirement must be satisfied before electing a course to meet the Upper-Level Writing Requirement. Advanced Placement (AP) credit is not equivalent to the FYWR.
First-Year Writing Requirement courses assign writing tasks designed to help:
- produce complex, analytic, well-supported arguments that matter in academic contexts;
- read, summarize, analyze, and synthesize complex texts purposefully in order to generate and support writing;
- demonstrate an awareness of the strategies that writers use in different rhetorical situations;
- develop flexible strategies for organizing, revising, editing, and proofreading writing of varying lengths to improve development of ideas and appropriateness of expression;
- collaborate with peers and the instructor to define revision strategies for particular pieces of writing, to set goals for improving writing, and to devise effective plans for achieving those goals.
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