English 130: First Year Writing Program

Welcome to First Year Writing at Chico State!

The English Department's First Year Writing Program is made up of a community of instructors and students engaged in learning about writing in a course called English 130W: Academic Writing. Passing ENGL 130W with a grade of C- or better meets the General Education A1 English Composition requirement. The course introduces you to the challenges of university level writing, reading, and critical thinking by helping you:

• developing your ability to read, engage with, connect to, and make a variety of texts, 

• deepening your research and inquiry processes and skills,

• use writing to effectively respond to situations and communicate with others, 

• progress through the writing process in a social, collaborative, revision-focused environment.

In W-courses, students use writing in the English language to inquire into and respond to course topics, engage in rigorous study about a body of knowledge essential to various audiences, and communicate that knowledge clearly to those audiences. A grade of C- or better is needed to pass this course. 

Program Learning Goals: 

1. Use composing and reading for inquiry, learning, critical thinking, and communicating in various rhetorical contexts.

2. Pursue authentic questions with intellectual openness and curiosity.

3. Find, evaluate, interpret, and synthesize primary and secondary sources and integrate our own ideas with those of others.

4. Learn, analyze, and apply genre conventions such as organizational styles, forms of evidentiary support, modes of presentation, and citation practices.

5. Participate in writing as a social activity through reading, collaboration, peer review, and other forms of feedback.

6. Develop flexible strategies for drafting, reviewing, revising, rewriting, rereading, and editing using a variety of technologies.

7. Identify the constructedness of writing conceptions and rules/conventions in light of the varying social and rhetorical contexts of academic, professional, civic, and/or personal writing situations.

8. Reflect on their growth as writers and readers across their literate life spans.

What Class Do I Need to Take?

All students must meet the General Education English Communication 1A requirement in order to graduate. When you are admitted to Chico State, the Office of Admissions will use multiple measures (a combination of your GPA, high school coursework, and test scores) to determine your placement for GE Written Communication. There are four possible placements:

• Fulfilled. This means you have met the requirement already, usually through AP tests, IB exams, or dual enrollment classes in high school. 
• Ready to Enroll in 1A English Composition. This means that you may enroll in either ENGL 130W Academic Writing or JOUR 130W Professional Writing for Public Audiences.
• Ready with Support Recommended. If you are in this placement, you will have a message in your Student Center’s Tasks section under “Holds.” It will tell you that you are recommended to take your GE Written Communication with a support course, ENGL 131 Writing Workshop (see below for more information). If you are in this category you may take any of these options: ENGL 130W with ENGL 131 (Recommended); ENGL 130W; or JOUR 130W.
• Ready with Support Required. If you are in this placement, you will have a message in your Student Center’s “Tasks” section under “Holds.” You are required to take ENGL 130W and ENGL 131 in order to satisfy your Written Communication requirement.  If you add ENGL 130W to your shopping cart without also adding ENGL 131, you will get an error message when you attempt to enroll. You can fix this by adding ENGL 131 to your shopping cart.
• ENGL 131 Writing Workshop: ENGL 131 is a1-unit, credit/no-credit workshop class that provides additional support to help you succeed in your ENGL 130W class. It features individual attention and assistance from faculty and specially-trained student mentors.

If you run into any trouble while trying to enroll in an ENGL 130W course, please contact the English Department Office at 530-898-5124, and we’ll help you find and enroll in the right course.

Please note that ENGL 130EW is a class specifically designed for our campus's International Students.  If you are not an international student, you won’t be able to enroll in that course. Advisors in the Office of International Education and Global Engagement will help you enroll in ENGL 130EW if it is the appropriate class for you.