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The Speaking and Writing Seminar Sequence introduces and reinforces reading, writing, speaking, and listening as communication competencies central to a liberal arts education. The two seminars in the sequence provide students with opportunities to develop communication and research skills and strategies useful for exploring, generating, challenging, and defending ideas. Students will engage in these processes through different topical lenses but will demonstrate their proficiency in similar types of assignments across the different sections. The transferable nature of these skills and strategies, in connection with disciplinary work in the major, will prepare students to succeed in the Junior Seminar and Senior Project, which represent capstone proficiency of the aforementioned communication competencies. Taken together, the Speaking and Writing Seminar Sequence, Junior Seminar, and Senior Project ensure that all Allegheny graduates are equipped to think critically and creatively, to communicate clearly and persuasively, to listen and respond thoughtfully, and “to meet challenges in a diverse, interconnected world” (Allegheny College Mission Statement).

Students who complete the Speaking and Writing Seminar Sequence will be able:

1. To demonstrate, as readers, writers, speakers, and listeners, an awareness of audience, purpose, occasion, and genre conventions and their effects on the creation and delivery of ideas.
2. To use the ideas of others to advance thinking.
3. To use iterative composing processes to discover and reconsider ideas and their expression.
4. To engage in reading, writing, speaking, and listening as acts of critical thinking.

All students must successfully complete both courses in the Speaking and Writing Seminar Sequence (SWS). Occasionally, a student may be granted transfer equivalencies for prior college coursework in speaking AND writing. SWS 105 is taken in a student’s first year; successful completion of this course is required prior to taking SWS 205. SWS 205 is generally taken in a student’s sophomore year in order to best prepare students for advanced level work in communication competencies and critical thinking in the Junior Seminar. 

Note: SWS courses do not count towards the College Distribution Requirements, nor toward major or minor requirements, for any student. 

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