I don’t care if you’re an Echols scholar. I don’t care if you got a great writing SAT score, and I don’t care if you got a 5 on your AP English Language exam. There should be no exemptions from the first writing requirement.
Whether it’s for lab reports, research papers or regular essays, writing is an integral part of obtaining a college education. Well-rounded student must know how to write well. So I haven’t been able to grasp why the University feels the need to give certain “selected” students a free pass when it comes to taking a required writing course. Such a system suggests that these premier writers need less practice than the rest of us.
From the start of college, I’ve noticed a contrast in the type of writing that’s required of college students compared to what’s required of high school students. High school focuses more on the five-paragraph essay style whereas college puts more stress on solid thesis statements. The fact-based writing characteristic of high school contrasts colleges’ emphasis on interpreting and analyzing those facts. First-year writing caters to these differences.
I’ll admit, after taking AP English Literature as a senior in high school, the difference isn’t drastic, but it’s still there. AP English Literature focuses more on analyzing literary devices and rhetorical strategies writers use and less on students forming their own unique arguments. The framework for academic arguments I’ve learned from my ENWR — Common Ground, Status Quo, Destabilizing Moment, Consequences, and Resolutions — was absent from any high school English class I took. Without the help of a first writing requirement, there is no way to know whether your writing fits this framework and measures up to the college standards.
My argument does not discredit the results of AP English Literature exams or SAT scores. If you can write three killer essays in two hours or one killer essay in 20 minutes, more power to you. But this should be no indicator of whether you can properly form a college-level academic argument as taught in first required writing classes.
No matter what their writing level is, students should always be improving and learning from their writing. Writing as well as the reading that comes with English courses helps students express thoughts, expand vocabulary and improve reasoning and critical thinking. Yet writing is useful in more arenas than academics. Writing also translates into the workplace. Doctors must write medical reports; business managers must write financial reports and psychologists write articles or journals on their work.
As first years, at least in the College, it is imperative that students take a multitude of introductory classes to find their interests. These introductory classes, as well as most of the 1000-level courses at the University, will tend to be on the larger side in terms of student size. Thus a first writing requirement, all of which possess a 30:1 student faculty ratio or better, offers what other classes cannot: the ability to speak, express thoughts and ideas and form arguments and questions.
Although large classes have discussions and labs to attempt to cater to student understanding, I find that the interactive nature of writing courses best stimulates critical thinking than any other courses I’ve taken as a first year.
Of course, this argument may infringe on the AP exemption discussion that has enveloped two previous opinion columns. If students can use AP Biology credits, why shouldn’t they be able to use AP English credits? As I stated before, writing is too entwined in every other discipline of study to “skip” over. Unlike an introductory biology or psychology class that merely repeats most of the information learned in AP classes, first-year writing classes overlap in no way with AP English Literature or Language. Students can even choose what topic they would like to cover in ENWR to ensure that this is the case.
The University also allows students to submit a portfolio of academic writing in lieu of the first writing requirement (though the portfolio must pass muster). This option should also be revoked for all students except transfers, who may have already taken writing classes their previous year of college. Otherwise, compiling a group of three academic argument essays should not take the place of classroom style learning nor should they replace the best resource students have to improve their writing: teachers.
Ultimately, writing and reading serve too high a purpose in college and our society to be overlooked through exemptions. In all honesty, students should have a required amount of writing each semester, but that would be impossible to measure or ensure. Great writers are formed through years of practice, and placing out of a writing class will certainly degrade a great writer instead of making him a stronger one.
Jared Fogel is a Viewpoint columnist for The Cavalier Daily.
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