In addition to the Inquiry Seminar, all students must complete the approved upper-division Writing-Intensive class, or sequence of classes, designated for their respective majors by their home departments. This requirement serves to enhance students’ mastery of the formats, conventions, and habits of mind appropriate to the major’s disciplinary investigations.

The Inquiry Seminar introduces students to the practices of inquiry, which form the foundation for the intellectual communities of the academy and the larger society. The Linfield Curriculum continues this process within various modes of inquiry. The overarching goal of Major Writing Intensive courses is to further develop the student’s ability to conduct inquiry within the various majors at the university—recognizing the importance of the writing process to the process of inquiry—and express the results of that inquiry in disciplinarily appropriate writing.

Therefore, courses designated as MWI pay explicit attention to writing and writing instruction while engaging students in all phases of the writing process. Furthermore, writing assignments are a significant portion of the course work and the course grade. In MWI courses:

1. Students frame key questions important to the understanding of their discipline.
2. Students answer such questions in writing appropriate to the conventions of their discipline and compelling to an intended audience.
3. Students develop or further refine an iterative writing process that includes prewriting activities (e.g. discussion, research, literature review) drafting, revising and editing, and that is appropriate for their chosen discipline.
4. Students receive significant instruction and feedback helping them in the various steps of this process.