Trinity College students are required to take a first-year writing course, Writing 120: Academic Writing, as part of their First-Year Experience, and two writing-intensive courses, WR/W*-coded, in order to graduate. One of these WR/W-coded courses must be taken after the first year. To see if a course meets this requirement, review the Curriculum Codes assigned to each course: undergraduates entering Duke beginning in Fall 2025 should look for the WR designation; undergraduates who matriculated to Duke prior to Fall 2025 should look for the W designation. You can find these in DukeHub, the University Bulletin, and the course list on most departmental websites.
The aim of the Writing in the Disciplines (WID) program is to engage undergraduates in writing as a form of critical inquiry and scholarly research. This means that the work you do as a writer needs to be a visible and an integral part of a writing-designated course. In such courses, you should expect to:
Write frequently throughout the term
You will be given regular practice in and comments on your writing. Assignments might take various forms, including, for instance, a series of brief response papers, or several mid-length papers, or a longer research project divided into sections.
Discuss your work as writers at various points during the term
You might present papers seminar-style to the class, collaborate on assignments, post research on the web, or otherwise read and respond to one another's work.
Reflect on and improve your work as writers
You might revise some of your writings in response to comments from their instructor, or write a series of papers in response to a set of linked topics or issues, or draft proposals for or submit sections of longer projects, or expand short response papers into longer essays.
Consider the roles and uses of writing in the discipline you are studying
You might analyze the structures of various genres of writing (critical essay, lab report, research article, policy memo, etc.), become familiar with standard forms of documentation, or discuss some of the characteristic styles of argument and discourse in the field.
*WR is the code designation for writing-intensive courses under the Trinity Undergraduate Curriculum launched in 2025 and applies to undergraduates entering Duke beginning fall 2025; W is the code designation for writing-intensive courses under Curriculum 2000.