Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, First-Year Writing Seminar
The First-Year Writing Seminar supports undergraduate students in transitioning from high school writing to college-level academic expression. At Northwestern University, these seminars emphasize critical thinking, argument development, revision, and effective written communication across disciplines. Students learn to formulate research questions, locate and analyze evidence, and develop an academic voice as they engage with diverse topics and themes. Discussion-based seminars promote collaboration and intellectual confidence. Beyond improving technical writing and close-reading skills, the seminars present writing as a continuous process of inquiry and discovery that establishes the foundation for academic and professional growth.
Redesigning FYWS Learning Activities
During the 2025–26 Searle Fellows Program, my goal was to redesign the learning activities for the first-year writing seminar to emphasize active practice and comprehension of college-level academic expression. Each class is divided into two 40-minute segments. The first part focuses on discussing weekly readings and themes. The second features in-class activities addressing key elements of academic writing, including close reading, gathering evidence, constructing arguments, developing a thesis, supporting main points, and preparing outlines.
To Begin
My Searle Fellows Project focuses on developing in-class learning activities for a first-year writing seminar for new and upper-year undergraduate students. It addresses a common challenge: many students arrive with high school writing experience but are unprepared for college-level academic and argumentative writing. Instead of simply summarizing ideas, first-year students need guidance in finding evidence, constructing arguments, analyzing information, and developing their own academic voice. These aspects of academic writing are especially challenging in the first year as students adjust to a new environment and manage their time and responsibilities independently. I developed and redesigned classroom activities that let students learn and practice writing skills interactively before submitting assignments. These activities encourage group discussion and collaboration instead of working independently on writing tasks.
The Journey: How We Learned
I remind my students that writing is an ongoing process with room for improvement. Developing these activities taught me a great deal about teaching, how to engage students in writing, and understanding their need for active learning methods. My goal was to introduce first-year students to academic writing, teach essential components, emphasize the importance of close reading and note-taking, and show them how to stay engaged in becoming good writers.
I was struck by the importance of intellectual confidence. Many first-year students have strong ideas but are unsure how to present them as arguments. They are not aware of why finding evidence (and where and how to find it) is central to making a strong argument and developing their own voice. I have experienced that students develop writing skills more effectively when they see writing as a process rather than a single finished product. However, helping students embrace this is challenging because many focus solely on the final grade. To support this, I provide opportunities for students to brainstorm, discuss, and reflect during class, and to draft, revise, and resubmit their work based on feedback and one-on-one writing tutorials outside of class.
Outcome: Student Growth
My Searle Fellows Project produced a set of in-class learning activities for each lesson, each focusing on a specific writing component. These aim to help undergraduate students develop essential college writing skills such as finding and analyzing evidence, establishing a strong thesis, developing ideas and supporting arguments, and working with sources, citations, and bibliographies. Other instructors teaching first-year writing seminars can use these materials as a reference and adapt or update them as needed. In the future, I would love to create a small working group to discuss pedagogical approaches to teaching college-level writing across fields, not just in the humanities.