Frosh English

Welcome to the First-Year Writing Program at San José State University!

We have designed First-Year Writing classes to help you progress on your lifelong process of becoming a writer and critical thinker. On this page, you can read more about our goals and values, SJSU’s writing requirements, what courses we offer, how to choose your courses, and our program policies.

If you have any questions or need assistance, please feel free to reach out to the program directors:

The Program

In our classes, you will build on sophisticated language and literacy skills that you already have to advance your academic, professional, and personal writing goals. All our courses emphasize the writing process: prewriting, organizing, composing, revising, and editing. The purpose is not to produce perfectly polished products but to develop knowledge, dispositions, and processes to help you approach current and future writing tasks with confidence and flexibility.

We believe—and extensive research confirms—that teaching and learning are most effective when they are based on mutual respect, reciprocal responsibility, collaborative engagement, and communal well-being. Ultimately, we believe there are no “good” writers or “bad” writers, only writers-in-progress. As such, our focus is on asset-based, growth-oriented writing to learn as opposed to deficit-based, product-oriented, “correct” writing.

We offer four courses for you to choose from as you develop your writing and satisfy your general education requirements. We believe that, with some support from us, you are the best person to determine which writing courses are right for you. We have developed a process to help you make a good decision, which we call the “Reflection on College Writing.”

Reflection on College Writing

All entering first year students complete the Reflection on College Writing (RCW) in June the summer before they enroll at SJSU. RCW is a series of short reading and writing activities designed to help you choose which course is best for your needs, and it is a prerequisite for enrolling in your First-Year Writing class. To learn more, visit our RCW information page.

If you have questions before, during, or after completing the RCW, please call us at 408-942-2570 or email directedselfplacement@sjsu.edu.

Our Courses

English 1A:

ENGL 1A is a semester-long, introductory writing course designed to help you understand some of the goals, dynamics, and genres of writing. By exploring writing processes, you will develop new reading skills, rhetorical sophistication, and a variety of writing styles appropriate to different audiences, purposes, and contexts. [Satisfies GE Area 1A: English Composition]

English 1AF/1AS:

Based on a nationally successful model, Stretch English is the yearlong version of ENGL 1A. Its description and learning goals are the same as ENGL 1A, but the course work is stretched out over two semesters for students who want more practice and support in their development as writers. The extra time affords you opportunities to practice, receive and offer feedback, and revise. Studying with one instructor and one student cohort for the full year also builds an effective writing community to sustain your development beyond this single course. [Satisfies GE Area 1A: English Composition]

If you want more details about what happens in Stretch, you can visit the Stretch English Faculty Learning Community website.

English 1B:

English 1B is a writing course primarily for Engineering majors that builds on ENGL 1A/ENGL 1AF/S and focuses on argumentation and analysis. Using literary, rhetorical, and professional texts, you will develop habits of mind required to write argumentative and critical essays. We place particular emphasis on writing and reading processes that support a broad understanding of how texts circulate in and influence the world. [Satisfies GE Area 3B: Humanities]

English 2:

English 2 is a writing course primarily for non-Engineering majors that builds on ENGL 1A/ENGL 1AF/S and focuses on the relationship between language and logic. You will learn various methods of effective reasoning and appropriate rhetorical strategies to help you invent, demonstrate, and express written arguments clearly, logically, and persuasively. [Satisfies GE Area 1B: Critical Thinking]

If you want to know more about the learning outcomes for each of our GE courses, you can access them at SJSU’s “Area Learning Outcomes” page.

How do I know which course to take?

The Reflection on College Writing is the first step. It will guide you through your initial choice. You may have credit through one of the GE writing requirements based on dual enrollment, transfer credits, or IB/AP/SAT/CLEP exams. Even if you have credit from other sources, you’ll still complete, the Reflection on College Writing, which will help you determine where to go next. Once you’ve met the GE Area 1A: English Composition requirement, you will choose your second writing class (either ENGL 1B or ENGL 2) based on your major. You can refer our “What to take after ENGL 1A” decision chart to determine your options.

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Still not sure what class meets your needs? Reach out to your advisors at the Advising Hub to get some help!

Program Policies

Because First-Year Writing classes are required GE courses, there are a lot of policies that govern the program, including University policies about attendance, student workload, grades, and academic integrity. Since the policies are spread out across different units at SJSU, we’ve tried to highlight some of the ones we think are most important on our “Program Policies” page.

We also know it can be confusing to wade through a bunch of policies, so we compiled a list of some “Frequently Asked Questions” for your reference. And, as always, if you have questions you can’t find answers to, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your First-Year Writing instructor, the English department, and/or to the directors of the program listed at the top of this page.

We look forward to seeing you in our classes!