Students who elect to take Expos Studio 10 have generally been recommended for the course by faculty in the Harvard College Writing Program on the basis of the Writing Exam taken over the summer. Students who are recommended will have a conference (on Zoom) with one of the Expos Studio 10 faculty before the semester begins to determine if enrolling in Expos Studio 10 is the right choice for them.
In addition, students can also choose to take the course without having been recommended for it – because they want to strengthen their writing preparation or because they know that an additional semester of writing instruction will be a benefit. Those students will also meet with an Expos Studio 10 faculty member to talk about whether the course is an appropriate placement for them.
Expos 10 advising will be available beginning in early August. To sign up for an advising appointment, please view the advising schedule here.
Students who take Expos Studio 10 in the fall complete the expository writing requirement by enrolling in either Expos Studio 20 or Expos 20 in the spring.
Deciding between Expos Studio 10 and Expos 20
While you will have the chance to discuss your particular writing background with an Expos faculty member in advising, it can help to know a bit about the course before that conversation. Expos Studio 10 gives students the chance to develop a strong foundation as a college writer before moving on to the faster pace of Expos 20. The curriculum in Expos Studio 10 is structured so that students can practice the skills and strategies of analyzing a text, developing an arguable thesis that moves beyond summary and offers a claim or interpretation about that text, and supporting that thesis with in-depth analysis of evidence.
Students choose Expos Studio 10 for a variety of reasons. Some of the most common include:
- A secondary school writing background that did not include substantive practice in writing
- An unfamiliarity with analysis—previous writing assignments may have prioritized summary or description instead of analytical argument
- A desire to build stronger foundational skills (developing a thesis and argument, summarizing complex sources, learning skills of analysis) and have greater confidence in using them in academic writing
- An unfamiliarity with the conventions of the American academic essay