Learning the Process of Writing in a First-Year Composition Course

I entered my first-year college composition course believing I was equipped with the knowledge, skill, and ability to write an efficiently researched and well-organized essay. In high school, I learned how to create the traditional five-paragraph paper with its introduction of a thesis, explanation of that claim through three sections riddled with supporting quotes, and conclusion that restated the author’s substantiated statement. This was the prescribed formula I had learned and grown accustomed to using for book reports, compare-and-contrast papers, and research essays and, from my bestowment of high grades and praise, I’d never thought to question or deviate from its pattern. When I attended my first college writing class, I thought it wasn’t going to be difficult or challenging because I believed I was familiar with the procedures and rules of writing.

The course, vaguely entitled English 1A, was a general requirement for all students attending the University of California, Riverside. I figured I was well prepared to write about whatever topics the instructor assigned and so I counted on the course to be unchallenging and uninteresting. However, the syllabus that the instructor, Professor Cardinale, supplied to the class was very unlike the English course outlines I was accustomed to. I began to panic when I read about unfamiliar methods such as freewriting and peer editing, which were going to be used in the class because I had never allowed or was required to have other students read my work. The most disconcerting aspect of the syllabus, though, was that the students were to choose their own topics to write about for all three of the required assignments. I had absolutely no idea how I was going to choose my own w...

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...learn about our world, to evaluate what we learn about our world, to communicate what we learn about our world” (4). I still use this writing process today because I believe it helps me to navigate, collect, and arrange my thoughts on whatever topic I am writing about. I now embrace the use of prewriting methods like freewriting and the recreation of memories to assist in my discovery and formation of a writing topic. Although I do not perform every writing tactic that Professor Cardinale employed, I believe that my current writing has undoubtedly strengthened as a result of the processes I have learned and now habitually apply before each essay.

Works Cited

Murray, Donald M. “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product.” Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. 3rd ed. Ed. Victor Villanueva and Kristin L. Arola. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 2011.