The goal of the First-Year Writing Requirement is to teach students the discipline and skills needed for college-level writing. Without these skills, college students can find it difficult to master analysis and argumentation at the level of academic sophistication University of Michigan courses demand.

The First-Year Writing Requirement should be completed in the first year, and must be completed before electing a class to satisfy the Upper-Level Writing Requirement.

Students fulfill the First-Year Writing Requirement by earning a course grade of C- or better in one of the following three ways:

1. Students may take the two-credit Writing Practicum (SWC 100) followed by an approved four-credit First-Year Writing Requirement course in LS&A.
   
2. Students may take an approved four-credit First-Year Writing Requirement course in LS&A. The list of approved courses for a particular semester is available through he advanced search feature in the LS&A Course Guide at http://www.lsa.umich.edu/cg/
3. Students who have taken writing courses at another college or university may be able to use those courses to satisfy the First-Year Writing Requirement. The list of currently approved courses, as well as the courses that are not approved, are available at: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/swc/undergrads/transfer/. This webpage also provides information on what steps to take if the transfer course is not on either list.
   

First-Year Writing Requirement courses assign writing tasks designed to help students learn to:

• 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; and
• 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.