The syllabus should offer a clear statement of the goals, practices, and policies of the course. A quick summary of the Values, Practices, and Goals of UConn FYW courses is as follows:

Core Values 

UConn First-Year Writing (FYW) pedagogy is grounded in active learning and universal design for learning. These values inform all of our practices.

Active Learning

Students in FYW seminars approach composing as active engagement. FYW courses focus on collaborative, inquiry-based problem solving and exploration, and therefore students' experience and their speaking and writing are central to the work of the classes. Active learning also acknowledges that writing is both an activity and a product: it is an embodied process as well as a material artifact that can be circulated after or as it is composed.

Accessibility and Inclusion

We recognize the strength that comes from diverse embodiments (in terms of race, gender, sexuality, language, ability, and experience) while actively working against structural inequalities that create systems of privilege. Adopting a Universal Design approach to learning can improve access and inclusion for all students because UD favors flexible negotiation of learning spaces over rigid standards. In our attention to rhetorical flexibility, we foreground audience, use, efficacy, and impact. Students in FYW contribute to and make use of linguistic, cultural, intellectual resources.

Practices 

1. Assignments, projects, and in-class work built around writing moves (formerly course moves) 
2. Substantial amounts of revised writing and composing in various modes and genres (3 or more major projects)
3. Additional short and informal writing and composing (both in and out of class)
4. Cycles of feedback, circulation, and revision with each project (including various forms of conferencing and workshopping)

Required Components

1. Course Inquiry—drives the intellectual work of the writing/composing
2. Studio Pedagogy — at least one quarter of the course happens in a studio mode
3. Multimodal composition — a consequence of prioritizing access and inclusion, develops rhetorical flexibility and metacognition 
4. Information Literacy (a UConn General Education requirement, soon to be IDML —Information Digital Media Literacy)
5. Reflective Writing
6. Field Research/Documentary component — engagement with texts, people, places, things

See the document Overview of ENGL 1007 for more information about these components and links to more resources.