Yale Center for Teaching and Learning

WR Courses Recommended for Freshmen

If you’re a freshman, we urge you to read the section Choosing a WR Course. What follows here expands upon that advice.

Three Ways to Think About a Freshman WR Course

(1) English 114

English 114 is the course at Yale that provides the best overall instruction to writing college papers.

(2) Other seminars for freshmen

Although writing college papers is not the main subject of the courses listed below, all of them make it a priority to teach freshmen how to improve their writing.

Introductory English

  • English 115
  • English 120
  • English 121
  • English 125
  • English 126
  • English 127
  • English 129
  • English 139

Directed Studies

  • DRST 002 Literature
  • DRST 004 Philosophy

(3) All WR Courses

You will learn the most about writing in a course you’re excited to take. If the seminars for freshmen listed above are not quite right for you, visit the WR listings for a course that grabs your interest. You can get the most updated WR information from the Yale Course Search website. Note: since these courses may have less time to spend on writing skills, we recommend getting extra feedback on your papers, perhaps from a Writing Center Tutor.