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First-Year English

All UWM students must satisfy the university’s Oral and Written Communication (OWC) requirements, Part A and Part B.

Part A is satisfied through First-Year English. Students must pass English 102 with a “C” or better to fulfill OWC-A. Most students take English 100 or 101 before taking 102. If a student places into English 100, they do not need to also take 101; they go directly into 102 upon passing 100.

Students are placed into English 100, 101 or 102 through UWM’s Guided English Placement tool (GEP); ACT, SAT, AP or IB scores; or prior equivalent college composition courses.

Contacts 

Meredith Hubble, English Department Associate, Curtin 433 

Shevaun Watson, Director of Composition, Curtin 414 

Jennifer Dworschack-Kinter, Assistant Director of Composition, Curtin 402   

Our Approach

The First-Year English program at UWM is grounded in rhetoric, which is effective and ethical communication. We believe all students, regardless of major, benefit from the development of rhetorical dexterity, or the ability to understand any writing situation or task, and to excel at it, whether in a university classroom or beyond. In our First-Year English classes, students learn and practice principles of rhetoric so they are prepared to write effectively across genres, audiences and media.  

We also teach advanced academic reading and research skills. Students read, analyze and synthesize a wide range of texts. They also learn 21st-century information literacy concepts and skills so they go out into the world as critical readers of complex information and savvy researchers of complicated issues. Course readings and research projects in each class are organized around a central theme. Themes present students the opportunity to explore deeply a current, pressing societal or local issue, such as Generative AI and Milwaukee’s Waterways. Rhetoric, reading and research are the foundation of every First-Year English course, and these skills are honed through work with the course theme. Reflection and revision are also important components of these classes. 

UWM Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge in Milwaukee that we are on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present.   |   To learn more, visit the Electa Quinney Institute website.