Composition at Miami University
The College Composition Program, housed in the Department of English, provides the groundwork for every student’s liberal arts education at Miami University. In fact, the composition course sequence (6 credit hours) is the Foundation I requirement of the Miami Plan.
Using carefully designed writing courses, the required composition course sequence prepares students for college-level work by immersing them in intellectual inquiry aimed at improving not only writing skills but also critical thinking capacity. Students are challenged to engage deeply with ideas, texts, and media through reading, research, discussion, and writing. Composition classes are rhetorically based, asking students to view all writing as situated within specific cultural and social contexts. Students critically analyze these contexts, paying attention to how audience and purpose shape writing. Writing is viewed as a process that affords students multiple opportunities for invention and for interaction with teachers and classmates.
Miami University has long been a leader in composition instruction and in composition research, with a nationally recognized graduate program in Composition and Rhetoric and with a national ranking as one of the Best Colleges in the United States in Writing in the Disciplines in 2010. The College Composition program is committed to continuing this tradition of excellence, in terms of both the quality of instruction and the intellectual substance and rigor of the composition curriculum.
Consult the Main Menu (to the left) for links to further information about Miami’s composition courses, about placement into those courses, and about AP and transfer credits for composition courses. Please note that some sections of the College Composition website are still “under development” and will be updated through the Spring 2011 semester.
If you have other questions or requests about college composition at Miami University, contact the Director of College Composition, James E. Porter, at porterje@muohio.edu.
- last updated: 01.27.11