Transferring Credit for First Year Writing Courses

Transferring Credit for WRIT 1122 or WRIT 1133

Students who complete an appropriate writing course at an accredited institution may receive credit for 1122 or 1133.  The Writing Program may need to review the course to make sure that it’s equivalent to ours at DU.

If you’re a student wanting to apply for transfer credit, here’s what to do.

1.  Apply for transfer credit through the Admission and Transfer Coordinator in the Office of the Registrar at DU.

2.  The Registrar's Admission and Transfer Coordinator will determine whether the course meets basic requirements to be accepted for credit at DU.  If the course does, it will initially be entered as “elective” credit.

3.  The Registrar's Coordinator will next see if the course is part of the State of Colorado's guaranteed transfer program gtPathways. The Colorado courses that transfer as WRIT 1122 can be found at: http://highered.colorado.gov/Academics/Transfers/gtPathways/Curriculum/co1.html

Courses that will transfer as WRIT 1133 can be found at: http://highered.colorado.gov/Academics/Transfers/gtPathways/Curriculum/co2.html

4.  The Registrar's Coordinator may be unable to determine if some courses are equivalent to DU courses.  In those cases, it’s your responsibility to provide detailed information to the writing program that will help us evaluate the course. 

In the case of #4. . .

Please furnish the following information to the University Writing Program in an email with attachments to Amy Kho. 

a.  Your name, your Banner ID, your campus email address.

b.  Your specific request (e.g. “Please consider course X taken at school Y as equivalent to WRIT 1122 (or 1133) at DU.”)

c.  The course number, title, catalog description, name of institution, and quarter/semester taken.

d.  A full description of the course, including the textbooks, the course goals and specific writing techniques/concepts/strategies/principles covered in the course, the specific course assignments, and a description of the instructor’s teaching practices (for example, reading multiple drafts, peer response, conferences, and so on).  Many (or perhaps even all) of these elements may be in the course syllabus.  Some will be clear from the textbooks. Some you may have to provide.

e.  Additionally, you may provide a portfolio of your writing in the proposed course.  This is optional, but showing us a collection of work you wrote for the class can strengthen your case.

Remember that you’re trying to make a compelling argument that yours was a substantial writing course that was equal in content and rigor to the ones we teach at DU.  Keep in mind that the DU WRIT courses require not only extensive amounts of writing but also explicit instruction in writing and about writing.  We teach the principles and applications of rhetoric, emphasizing arguments for civic and academic audiences.  Our courses focus on developing student writing, not on teaching about a subject matter.  

If you're applying for credit for WRIT 1122, you should examine the goals and characteristics of WRIT 1122 and explain how your course meets them. 

If you're apply for credit for WRIT 1133, you should examine the goals and characteristics of WRIT 1133 and explain how your course meets them.

It’s not enough that a course had lots of writing in it. Many fine courses do, but they aren’t writing courses, anymore than, say, a psychology class that includes statistics is necessarily a mathematics course.  Often students contact us wanting a course to count that included a substantial amount of writing.  Without further evidence that this was a course in writing and about writing, we don't approve such courses.  A large number of courses at DU include significant amounts of writing. (A survey of first year students in 2006-07 showed that more than half of them wrote more than 37 pages during the fall quarter.)  Yet even these writing-intensive courses at DU don't satisfy the WRIT 1122 or 1133 requirement.  

Also, some courses that were called writing or composition courses may not be equivalent to DU's WRIT courses.  If your course focused on grammar or sentences or paragraphs; if it concentrated on a narrow formula for writing; or if it included relatively little actual writing, then that course is not equivalent to DU's courses.

We’ll be looking for evidence that you were taught writing strategies or rhetorical principles.  We’ll be looking for a well-designed sequence of assignments.  We’ll be looking for ways that your instructor had an active role as a writing teacher, responding to drafts, for example, or setting up workshops or peer responses, or directly having you practice strategies, or so on. 

In short, the way you make your case—the quality of your explanations—will influence our determining whether you should receive writing credit at DU.  We want to give you any credit that you’ve earned, so make a clear and careful case for yourself.  

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