Critical Reading and Writing at the College Level

Modeled on the expository writing courses taken by all first-years at Harvard, this course helps prepare students for the critical thinking, reading, and writing that is required at the college level. Throughout the course, we practice advanced skills that will serve students well no matter their academic interests: how to evaluate arguments and develop nuanced and interesting ideas about those arguments, how to sustain their own arguments through careful and rigorous analysis, and how to engage with sources responsibly and effectively. Students learn to craft compelling and persuasive arguments in a collaborative classroom setting that emphasizes oral drafting, peer critique, and revision. In addition to focusing on the big-picture elements of academic argumentation, students learn to hone their writing at the sentence level, and a consideration of how disciplinary differences shape conventions of academic writing gives students a glimpse of how they will apply their writing skills in a variety of fields that await them in college.