First-Year Seminar
Objectives
The University Writing Program offers a selection of topic-driven first-year seminars that challenge students to formulate meaningful arguments, support them with observations and evidence, and convey them clearly and persuasively. Each seminar emphasizes writing as a means of thinking, exploring, and understanding. Students will engage with writing as an integral part of academic and professional life, recognizing its value and utility and its capacity to foster an engaged citizenry through critical thinking and discussion.
Students will also learn to identify some of the conventions of disciplinary writing, and they can apply their writing skills to courses in their major and throughout the Brandeis curriculum. This first-year writing requirement aims to improve students’ written communication skills during their careers at Brandeis.
Learning Goals
Upon completion of the First-Year Seminar, students will be able to:
- Articulate elements of effective writing, including the revision process, and integrate them into their own work.
- Identify and assess central ideas, arguments, and concepts in foundational texts.
- Generate original questions and pursue independent research.
- Construct well-reasoned arguments and substantiate them with observations and evidence.
- Identify and evaluate sources and use them responsibly.
- Provide constructive feedback to peers and respond to feedback provided by others.
- Develop awareness of disciplinary differences in writing and adapt their writing to different genres, contexts, and audiences.
How to Fulfill the Requirement
The requirement will be fulfilled by satisfactorily completing one First-Year Seminar (FYS) in the student's first year.
Courses of Instruction
CSEM 1a Composition Seminar
Placement by the Director of First-Year Writing. Successful completion of this course does NOT satisfy the first-year writing requirement.
A course in the fundamentals of writing, required as a prerequisite to the First-Year Seminar for selected students identified by the Director of First-Year Writing. Several sections will be offered in the fall semester.
FYS 1a - 89b First-Year Seminar
Designed to instill and enhance flexible writing and research skills. A selection of readings stimulates discussion, deepens understanding, and serves as foundation for writing assignments. Students will recognize the role of writing in fostering critical thinking and learn to identify conventions of disciplinary writing.