Hello. First of all, congratulations and welcome to Wake Forest! We are so excited to welcome you to campus this fall.
As you start to think about the next semester, we wanted to give you some information about the writing requirement. As you may know, all students at Wake Forest are required to take a first-year writing course.
Many years ago, the College faculty decided that writing was so central to learning and education that we felt all students would benefit from a common grounding in writing.
So, while all students take first-year writing, not all first-year writing courses are the same. In fact, you’ll have a couple of decisions to make before you register.
The first is, which path do I take? We offer two.
Most students take WRI 111, which is a single-semester, four-credit hour class that satisfies the requirement. This course is well suited to all students, but especially those who feel fairly confident about making the transition to college writing and who don’t feel like they’ll have tons of demands on their time in the fall that would make a four-credit course feel impossible.
The other option is the stretch sequence. This consists of two classes: WRI 109 and WRI 110. These are meant to be taken consecutively, although you may not have the same instructor or classmates for both classes. Each one is two credit hours, so together it adds up to the same four credit hours as WRI 111. And again, the stretch sequence courses satisfy the writing requirement.
This course is also well suited to all students, but it is especially well suited to those who maybe feel a little less confident about their writing or who know they have a lot of demands on their time, such as a lot of lab courses, athletic practices or commitments, or those students who just feel they want to take a little extra time with their writing.
Either one is fine. Either one satisfies the requirement. Either one will be a great experience.
But, once you’ve made that decision about which course to take, then you get to decide which section of the course to take. As I mentioned, no two writing courses are the same.
If you look on our website—the Writing Program website—you can learn a lot about the writing requirement. You can also navigate to this courses menu, pick Fall 2025, and see what we have on offer this fall.
First, you’ll see the descriptions of the WRI 109 sections and then the WRI 111s. You’ll notice that the topics range from DIY and crafting to food to writing about place, writing as access. Some courses will ask you to engage with technology or think about the role technology plays in your writing. In other words, there’s a huge range that you can probably find something that suits your interests.
No matter which class you take, your writing class will emphasize the practice of writing. So, all of these classes are really great spaces for you to try out new genres, or styles of writing, and refine your understanding of audience and purpose and context. And most importantly, maybe, to share writing with an audience of interested peers and, of course, your instructor.
So, how do you make this choice?
We’ve developed a survey that we call the “Decision Tool,” that’s designed to get you to reflect a bit on your experiences with language and your experiences with writing in previous academic and other contexts.
It is important to note that the survey is really just a reflection tool. It will not place you into a class; we will not tell you which one you have to take. There is also no test—not Advanced Placement, not IB, not anything else—that will slot you into a particular class. We really want students to think about both their previous experiences with writing and what they anticipate for the fall and allow that reflection to drive your choice.
Obviously, scheduling and space constraints are going to play a role. But again, there is no bad decision and any of the courses will satisfy the requirement and help you get acclimated to writing at Wake Forest.
Again, we’re really excited to welcome you to campus this fall. If you have any questions in the meantime, of course peruse the website. You can also email us at writing@wfu.edu and we will do our best to answer those questions.
We’ll see you soon.