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First
Year Writing Instruction
Holly's
Ideas & Examples for Inspiration
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The First-Year
Student
To understand the
goals of composition courses, you have to understand the first-year
student. Below, I summarize the baggage these students bring from high
school (in regard to literacy and writing skills), and how your class
has to combat this baggage. As a writing instructor, you need to know
as much about "what to undo" as "what to do" for
students.
- Studies have shown
that high school students have the following tendencies, beliefs, and
myths in their practices of and attitudes toward writing:
- A tendency
toward quantification (How many pages? How many quotations? How
many sources?).
- A tendency
to fall to accept the status quo, rather than sustaining a controversial
opinion and argument.
- A tendency
to separate fact and opinion instead of understanding analysis/argument
from evidence.
- A tendency
to view writing as a discrete act or product, separate from reading,
research, and reflection or discovery of ideas.
- A tendency
to believe revision is a matter of style and mechanics (they only
change a few words where you've written something in the margin!)
- A tendency
to believe writing is a recipe comprised of rules of Standard
English.
- A tendency
to be familiar with abstract grammatical rules, and yet unable to apply them.
- A tendency
to think that the rules of Standard English are arbitrary grammar
school rules rather than a writer's control over the flow of ideas.
- A tendency
to want models or formulas (recipes) rather than learning principles
of excellence, because they have spent a lifetime regurgitating
knowledge rather than thinking in prose.
- A tendency
to believe written text does not include them (it is self-contained
and boring) yet is written in stone (sacrosanct)-even when they've
written it!
- A tendency
to over-rely on sources, believing a paper with many quotations
to be the best paper.
- A tendency
to plagiarize, because they are taught to change words of the
encyclopedia.
- A tendency
to develop a thesis of cosmic significance, rather than understand
what can and cannot be proven by the reading to which they are
responding.
- A tendency
to wait to the last minute, without the ability to pace themselves.
- A tendency
to write the introduction and thesis before the paper, finding
a real thesis at the end, not understanding the benefits of computer
composition and writing as discovery.
- A tendency
to have highly developed visual literacy skills that disappear
when they face tasks of reading and writing prose.
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- Your course must
combat all these myths by teaching the following principles:
- An overemphasis
on quantity precludes attention to the development of ideas. Be
sure that your syllabus sets clear policy but also describes your
course. Fine writing does not depend on length. (Model this in your syllabus.)
- The commonplace
is not a thesis; teach the meaning of a thesis and all its components.
The student can express a point of view by:
- understanding
that between fact and opinion lies assertion based upon well-reasoned
evidence and
- supporting their interpretations of literature with textual
evidence, in a variety of exercises.
- Try to
redefine or underemphasize the words "fact" and "opinion,"
since students arrive with these preconceptions.
- Writing is
integrated with processes of learning, discovering, reading, and
research.
- Writing and
revision are inseparable actions.
- Revision
is the process of re-seeing texts, in terms of ideas, logical flow,
paper/paragraph shape, and rhetorical emphasis on each sentence's
control of information flow.
- Syntax is
more than correctness; it is control of:
- rhetorical
emphasis of and within sentences
- the flow of information in the sentence
- the rationale behind the rule (open up discussion: why does
ending with a noun sound better than ending with preposition?
Where does your inflection fall?)
- Knowledge
of rules may not generalize to all student writing (there are
rule-based learners and those who develop writing skill by reading
and writing or aural proficiency-like yourself, probably.)
- Persistent
errors persist because they have a logic. Use "never-again" notebooks,
RLC tutors, software, and peer training to combat persistent errors.
Students repeat errors because they have learned a certain habit.
In fact, researchers of student errors find that their errors
actually have a logic. Determine the logic of the student error,
change the logic, and refuse to accept papers that repeat errors in revision.
- Writing
in college is beyond writing in high school. Many students assume that
they already learned to write. Determine what they know about writing.
For example,
high schoolers believe that an introduction is supposed to
take a funnel shape, in which "you begin with a broad
claim" and then narrow to the topic. When you find out
this student logic, you can then replace the logic with your
own and emphasize that students are developing into college
writers.
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Tel: (856) 225-6121, Fax: (856) 225-6602
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