As part of the general education requirement, First-Year Writing contributes to the larger mission of the University by focusing on inquiry-based teaching and learning that encourages students to begin to understand themselves as:

• contributing members of MSU’s community of scholars
• committed to asking important questions and to seeking rich responses to those questions
• developing the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to improve the quality of life for themselves and others through their scholarly, social, and professional literacy activities

Participating in and contributing to important conversations in the 21st century requires facility both with traditional literacy practices such as essay writing and with multimedia-based forms of literacy such as online writing and video technologies. The course themes focus on some of these important conversations and represent issues that resonate across all of the major areas of study our students plan to pursue in their undergraduate education. While the issues vary, there are some important shared concepts, experiences, and materials in each course to ensure that you have a common ground for the literacy activities you will engage in outside of individual courses. This is important because you will be working with lots of different students and teachers as you read, write, and do research outside of your first-year writing course.