Faculty Guide to Teaching WR 111 and WR 112

• Syllabi and syllabi submission: Please use the current version of the WR syllabus templates–complete with shared policy language–for WR 111 or WR 112 (as applicable) when creating your syllabus. New instructors will need to submit their draft syllabi for review by a Curriculum Coordinator before the semester begins. All instructors should then submit the final version of their syllabi by the end of the first week of the semester.
• Learning management system: Instructors are expected to establish some kind of online course “home” (learning management system, online syllabus, etc.) and to specify the link on their syllabi; Blackboard Ultra is the BU standard, and a Blackboard site can be created for each course within MyBU. Some instructors like to use Blackboard for everything, including all submission of student work, while others have relatively minimal Blackboard sites that simply contain a link to a Google drive folder or whatever other system works for you.
• Assignment sheets and writing process: Formal assignments should have a written assignment sheet, posted on Blackboard or Google drive and shared with students ahead of time. Review guidelines for user-friendly assignment sheets here. Students will write at least one draft of each formal writing assignment and will receive feedback on it from instructors and/or peers. Drafts are required–students may not skip drafts and expect to pass the course. Instructors may choose to give written feedback on drafts or may prefer to give feedback on drafts in conferences (individual or group); you are expected to have a conference with each student at least twice per semester.
• Portfolios and reflective writing: All students in the Writing Program create, in their first WR course, and add to, in each successive course, a cumulative WR portfolio in Digication that we use for program-wide assessment. You may read more about the portfolio here, but the bottom line is that in the beginning of every course you teach, you must introduce the idea of the portfolio. Even in a spring WR 112, it is likely that you will have at least a student or two who did not take WR 111 in the fall; please ensure you assign the portfolio creation first (or, if you have some WR 112 students who have previously made a portfolio in WR 111, to give you access to it) and also the shared first assignment in the portfolio, a literacy narrative. Throughout the course, it is expected that you will be asking students to do a large amount of reflective writing (some of it at home, some in class, much of it not even reviewed by you); students will then be responsible for selecting and posting three of their pieces of reflective writing, as well as one “featured assignment” from your class, to their portfolio by the end of the semester.
• AI: Please use our shared GenAI policy across all sections of WR 111 and WR 112, adapting as necessary, and add additional AI guidelines for each assignment.
• End of the semester: All required coursework, including the final paper, should be due and submitted by the day that classes end: Nothing may be due for students for a WR class during reading period or finals. However, you should hold class on the final day of the semester.
• Pass/fail classes: We need to stress to students that although these classes are pass/fail, they do require effort, and that we expect regular work throughout the semester, outside of class time; regular attendance; and committed class participation. It is expected that students will, once or twice a week, be assigned short homework exercises (discussion questions, reading journals, imitations of an author’s use of language, summaries, metacognitive reflections, etc.) that help build crucial academic writing skills, structure their responses to the assigned readings, and serve as key scaffolding for writing their formal papers. Instructors have flexibility in choosing which kinds of homework–that is, which specific low-stakes assignments–to assign when in the semester. However, we have found that we need to frequently emphasize to students that although the class is pass/fail, this homework is not optional, and students will not be able to pass the class without completing it. Refer to these notes for additional tips on implementing our Pass/Fail policy. As Asao Inoue said, when he spoke to us during a professional development day in August 2023, “If you don’t do the work, you can’t do the learning. Failure is only the act of not doing the work.” In other words, students pass WR 111 and WR 112 by doing the work, and they fail by not doing the work–not by producing work that isn’t “good enough.”

As a course, WR 111 is designed to be an exciting Hub class that acclimates students to the expectations of the university and gets them students writing and talking about identity, culture, and education. Students complete a three-module sequence of assignments that guides them from narrative through argument and to collaborative writing, with lots of oral work in class and some explicit attention to critical AI literacy.

Notes for Faculty Teaching WR 111 in Fall 2026:

Though WR 112 has undergone significant revisions over the years, WR 111 had not, until now. It remained, through the 2025-2026 academic year, a very traditional academic writing course, and though some students benefit from it (especially the frequent shorter assignments and the oral emphasis), other students often perceived it as “too easy,” or a “repeat of high school,” and not really meeting their needs. 

The key principles we kept in mind as we revised WR 111 were:

• The importance of acclimating students to the university (within and beyond the classroom)
• Our collective desire to move beyond a prescriptive, deficit-based lens 

We have therefore reimagined WR 111, and we invite you to pilot at least one aspect of the course with us this fall. Ideally, everyone teaching WR 111 this fall will begin with Module 1, an individual exploration module that gets students thinking about narrative as a genre that they both read and write (and, of course, revise). Beyond Module 1, you are encouraged to adopt as much of the new course structure as you feel comfortable with, keeping in mind that teaching a new course is challenging, but also exciting. We will be offering frequent check-in opportunities throughout the fall for instructors teaching WR 111, and then some additional reflection opportunities and professional development next spring.

WR 111 Revision Timeline

Thinking creatively and flexibly about what WR 111 could be, given changing student demographics and needs, we took a backwards design approach to revise WR 111 and help us create a genuinely interesting “Hubbed-up” class that students may really want to take. We have attempted to revise this course with input from stakeholders at every step, and are always interested in hearing input from faculty or students.

• Summer 2023, Student Information-Gathering:
  ELL Assessment reviewed student satisfaction surveys and also selected student work from both WR 111 and WR 112; ELL Associate Director and two full-time lecturers who had applied for an Assessment Mini Grant worked together to review the student surveys and think about what students want or need from WR 111.
• Spring 2026, Planning and Curricular Development:
  WR 111 Revision Committee, ELL Associate Director, and ELL Curriculum Coordinator worked together to reflect broadly, critically, and creatively about WR 111 has been, is, and can be, and to create new learning outcomes and assignment sequences; all part-time and full-time ELL faculty were invited to respond to a survey in February and then review proposed new course descriptions and learning outcomes in April; student perspectives were also considered, and the committee reviewed survey responses from students who took WR 111 in Fall 2025.
  
• Summer 2026, Faculty Preparation:
  ELL Associate Director and ELL Curriculum Coordinator will work with ELL faculty (particularly focusing on those who will be teaching WR 111 in Fall 2026) to share materials for revised assignments, discuss in-class implementations, and collaboratively build syllabi.
  
• Fall 2026, Transitional Curriculum Semester for WR 111:
  ELL Associate Director and ELL Curriculum Coordinator provide ongoing support; faculty teaching WR 111 this semester can teach a mix of old/new WR 111 and reflect on the strengths and challenges of the course; students will be surveyed at the middle and end of the semester.
• Spring-Summer 2027, Faculty Professional Development:
  Potential for additional training for more ELL faculty, so that all are prepared to teach the new Hub requirements, especially.
• Fall 2027, New WR 111 Curriculum Official:
  All faculty are expected to be teaching the new curriculum; ELL Associate Director and ELL Curriculum Coordinator provide ongoing support.
• Additional Details: If you are new to the Writing Program, the following list may help you with the logistics of planning for the beginning of classes. Please check the “WPnet,” our robust policy/FAQ site, for answers to additional questions, and of course, feel free to reach out to the ELL Associate Director with any questions.
  • Double-check the important semester dates and ensure they are included on your syllabus.
  • Be sure you understand the BU building codes and preview your classroom layout.
  • Remember to fill out the online forms to submit your draft and final syllabi.
  • Check the Writing Program FAQ page for other small details.

Written Assignments

Polished versions of the formal assignments above should add up to 2000-2200 words (8-9 pages). Other writing (homework, low-stakes papers, etc.) should average 10-15 pages.

Oral Presentations and Class Participation

We expect that students will be speaking frequently in small groups, in class discussions, and in oral presentations throughout WR 111. The oral presentations and class discussions at this level are designed to practice fluency and improve confidence in public speaking. Students will be expected to formulate and pose relevant questions about different (content and rhetorical) aspects of the text; listen actively and contribute ideas and constructive criticism; demonstrate consideration of audience and purpose; and use appropriate academic vocabulary.

• Student-facilitated discussions of readings (required oral presentation element)
• Language-focus presentation in small teams (required oral presentation element)
• Debate (optional–may be added if desired)

In addition to the above, students typically also give short individual 3-minute (followed by Q&A) “Individual in Community” presentations that highlight characteristics of the community an individual student is coming from — school community, extended family community, neighborhood, etc.

Our goal was to change the readings in WR 111 only minimally from the “old” to “new” versions of the course, preserving the readings that instructors love teaching while considering the overall purpose of reading in this course: 

1. We will be omitting the longer work in WR 111 in order to make space for additional teamwork and public speaking elements. Please do not order, require, or assign a novel, memoir, etc. for your classes.
2. We will no longer be requiring The ESL Writer’s Handbook. Please do not order or require that for your classes. Instructors may continue to assign sections from the Purdue OWL, our Flipped Learning Modules, and/or other online resources that you feel can support students as necessary.
3. Consensus is that both faculty and students like the essays in The Norton Sampler; we would like to claim all essays in The Norton Sampler (marked “NS” below), plus some additional texts listed here, as a common set of readings for WR 111, among which faculty should feel free to select their favorites. Instructors may choose to continue using The Norton Sampler (if so, please order it through the bookstore for your section(s) as usual) or just use a selection of the following shared pool of readings below. As always, if you have a favorite reading, video, etc. you like to use in WR 111, please share it with us so we can include it here for others to also draw on.
4. When selecting essays from the pool below, we suggest specifically assigning some texts from both categories below (narratives/memoirs and op-eds/short opinion essays), since those are the main genres students will be writing in WR 111.
5. Remember, you don’t need to overload students with readings–one or two of these texts in most weeks should be sufficient to keep students in the habit of reading and to give fodder for class discussions. You may want to focus more explicitly on reading strategies near the beginning of the course, reading for analysis in the middle, and genre analysis when a paper is approaching. Some weeks, particularly when students are working on their team projects, you may have very light readings or no readings at all.
6. Please do not use any of the following texts in WR 112; similarly, please do not use a WR 112 text (essay or video) in WR 111, as we would like students to feel that there is a clear separation between the two courses. 

Reading Category 1–Narratives, Memoirs, and Personal Essays: 

• Addonia, Sulaiman–“My Mother: The Reader  I’ve Always Wanted but May Never Have”
• Barry, Lynda—“The Sanctuary of School” [NS]
• Capo Crucet, Jennine—“Taking My Parents to College” [NS]
• Chandrasekaran, Priya—“Cutting our Grandmothers’ Saris” [NS]
• Damico, Beca–“Saudades”
• Erdich, Louise–”Two Languages in Mind, but Just One in the Heart”
• Faison, Wonderful–”Reclaiming my Language: The (Mis)education of Wonderful”
• Gonzalez, Elisa–”How Alienation Became My Superpower” 
• Holt, Steve–”Her Name Is Qiongyue. You Can Call Her “Joanna” | Bostonia | Boston University”
• Jacob, Mira—“The Arranged Marriage That Ended Happily Ever After: How My Parents Fell in Love, 30 Years Later” [NS]
• Kincaid, Jamaica–”Girl”
• Kothari, Geeta—“If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” [NS]
• Law, Winston–“The Practice of Belonging to America” 
• Márquez, Myriam–”Why and When We Speak Spanish in Public” [NS]
• Mebane, Mary E.–”Back of the Bus” [NS]
• Noah, Trevor–“Chameleon” [NS]
• Orange, Tommy–“How Native American Is Native American Enough?” [NS]
• Rose, Mike—“Blue-Collar Brilliance” [NS] 
• Shain, Alan–”Odette’s” [WR journal student creative nonfiction essay)
• Sotomayor, Sonia—“My Beloved World” [NS]
• Tan, Amy–“Mother Tongue” [NS]
• Vargas, Jose Antonio—“Fake” [NS; excerpt from “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant”]
• Vuong, Ocean–“Immigrating into English” [NS]
• White, E.B.—“Once More to the Lake” [NS]
• Wong, Kristin–”The Biracial Bond of Not Being Asian Enough” 
• Yoon, Susan–“Sharing an Airbnb With My Parents for Seven Weeks”
• Zauner, Michelle—“Crying in H Mart” [NS]

Reading Category 2–Op-Eds, Advice, and Opinion Essays:

• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi—“Dear Ijeawele” [excerpts, NS]
• Camarillo, Elizabeth–“Redefining Statistics and My Dreams: A Personal Essay from a Second-Generation Latina Immigrant” 
• Guerrero, Diane—“My Parents Were Deported” [NS]
• McCabe, Janice–“I Study Friendship. Here’s How You Make Lasting Friends.”
• Tsui, Bonnie–”Choose Your Own Identity”
• Turkle, Sherry—“Stop Googling, Let’s Talk” [NS]
• Wilberg, Henrik Sunde–”How American Cool Dies” 

Approach

In WR 112, we strive to:

• Teach the whole student, emphasizing a humanitarian, vs. a legislative, approach
• Value all kinds of diversity, particularly linguistic diversity, and invite these qualities into the classroom to enrich learning
• Empower students to critically use and analyze language at every level
• Work within an antiracist framework to dismantle systems of oppression 

Formal Papers

WR 112 requires two formal projects:

1. Academic synthesis paper: This 1200-1500 word paper has students bringing together three texts in a complex academic argument, in preparation for more advanced writing they will need to do across the university.
2. Multimodal project (individual or group): This project allows students to work in a non-academic genre, creating a video essay, public service announcement, infographic, or other multimodal project, yet still drafting, revising in response to feedback, and considering their audience.

Polished writing in WR 112 should add up to 3000-3750 words (12-15 pages). Other writing (homework, low-stakes papers, etc.) should average 10-15 pages.

Readings

In WR 112, some instructors choose to use a handbook or a text such as They Say/I Say to supplement the online assortment of essays we have compiled, while others may prefer using the Purdue OWL or other online resources. Most WR 112 instructors do not require any books at all. If you do want to require a supplemental handbook/writing guide for your students, you will need to make sure that they are ordered for your section of WR 112 by emailing textbks@bu.edu before the beginning of the semester; all you need is your section number, and a preference about whether you would like e-books only, physical books only, or either (this is your choice) to be listed as required for the course.

Hub Requirement: Global Citizenship & Intercultural Literacy

As defined by the BU Hub, intercultural literacy is the “ability to orient ourselves when outside our cultural comfort zones (abroad, when speaking a different language, in an unfamiliar neighborhood, for example) and to work with sensitivity with people from different backgrounds is necessary for success in the workplace and a productive, meaningful life.” When satisfying this Hub requirement, “students will demonstrate, through comparative reflection or analysis, an understanding of global diversity as expressed in at least two different languages, cultures, religions, political systems, or societies,” and they will furthermore “demonstrate detailed understanding of the ways in which historical and systemic bases of social and racial inequities occur in the world today. This may include awareness of systems of racial inequity (such as in education, employment, health, housing, data science, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and the law), the social consequences of such inequities, and antiracist or other activism aimed at creating a more just and equitable society.” The readings and viewings in WR 112, therefore, circle around these topics, and in-class discussions and major assignments should lead students toward this kind of intercultural analysis and a focus on inequities–including linguistic injustice. 

Oral Presentations and Class Participation

We expect that students will be speaking frequently in small groups, in class discussions, and in oral presentations throughout WR 112. The oral presentations and class discussions are designed to help students feel comfortable in other college-level discussion-based classes.

• Team oral presentation/discussion leading: This assignment is designed to develop proficiency in academic language and build confidence in public speaking. It is not a presentation as much as it is the task of leading/facilitating a discussion, and thus also cultivates team management skills. 
• Linguistic controversy presentation: This assignment allows teams of students to question some of the linguistic norms they might have been taught, and to share their analysis with the class for a lively discussion.