The College Writing program is composed of four courses: Fundamentals of Writing, Writing Skills Workshop, College Writing Workshop, and Research Writing Workshop.  In order to maximize success, a variety of factors are used to place incoming students in the appropriate course.  All FDU students must complete College Writing Workshop and either Research Writing Workshop or a comparable Writing Intensive course before graduating.

All College Writing courses are structured as hands-on workshops, with students and their instructors planning, drafting, and revising papers together. Understanding that writing a paper occurs over time teaches students to reflect upon what they have written, to test the ideas and conclusions they have reached, and to reshape and revise their papers in light of their discoveries. During this process, students learn to use their writing to think through difficult subjects and texts. Students need to become aware that they don't write in a vacuum, but in response to the ideas of others, whether those ideas arise from essays they are reading, their classmates' comments, or their teachers' observations. When students can value writing as a heuristic activity, they will become serious writers producing serious work.