Exemption from WRIT 100

Students with reported scores of 5 on the AP English Language or Literature examination will be automatically exempted from WRIT 100 after their AP scores have been reported to the University Registrar. Students with reported scores of 6 or 7 on the English IB test of either of the two group 1 Language A courses, Language, or Language and Literature, will also be exempted from WRIT 100. These particular AP 5 and IB 6 or 7 scores fulfill Foundations Writing (FDR FW).

Students are expected to take WRIT 100 at Washington and Lee during the first year of study. AP and IB scores should be reported during the summer before matriculation.

Transfer students with college composition courses on their records should be prepared to show a syllabus to the chair of English. In all cases, students should make sure that their test scores or college transcripts are forwarded to Washington and Lee in advance of their arrival on campus.

Advice for Exempted First-Year Students

Be sure to exercise your good writing skills by taking courses that require writing (especially formal essays). Take a First-year Seminar. Writing courses can be found in most departments. Consider fulfilling your Humanities Literature (HL) distribution requirement with a 200-level literature course in English or in Literature in Translation.

Students who have taken dual enrollment college composition courses in lieu of 12th grade English will not be awarded major or FDR credit.

All others should sign up for a section of WRIT 100.

Many of the sections of the Writing Seminar for First-Years (WRIT 100) are taught by English professors. Only about half of all first-year students will be able to fulfill the FDR FW requirement with a fall term section of WRIT 100. The others will take it in the winter. During the fall and winter terms combined, the English Department offers sufficient spaces, in sections capped at 15 students, for all students who have been placed in WRIT 100. Fulfillment of the first-year FW composition requirement should not be delayed. No spring term WRIT 100 sections will be offered.

Sophomores who have postponed taking their first-year English composition course, or who have failed the course and seek to retake it, must get permission from an individual instructor of WRIT 100, or see the head of English Department to be admitted from the waitlist of a chosen section. All first-year students will be accommodated before any sophomores are admitted: sophomores go to the back of the line. Normally, all fall term WRIT 100 sections fill to capacity, so the usual result for a sophomore seeking to take WRIT 100 is placement in whatever space remains available in a winter term section.

Purpose of the Foundation Requirement FDR (FW):

Students will receive extensive practice in critical reading and writing; will be introduced to conventions governing appropriateness and persuasiveness in writing; learn the conventions of standard English; learn to choose words more precisely, to write clearer sentences and more effective paragraphs, to argue a workable thesis, to use an effective voice, and to integrate the work of others into their own work properly; and, overall, learn to increase precision, fluency, and confidence with written language.

After WRIT 100: students who have taken WRIT 100 (or English 101, 105) may move on to 200-level literature courses in English in order to work on FDR HL. That distribution requirement may also be fulfilled with courses outside the English Department.