WAW: The Hidden Gem of Writing
Anais Nin once said “We write to taste life twice, in the moment
and in retrospect.” Throughout our entire lives we have written pieces to
correspond with many different situations. Now that we are in at the college
level, writing becomes more than just something that needs to be done; it
becomes our personalities on paper. Angelica Nava explains this in her essay
“Where Teachers and Students Meet” as she proves that the Writing about Writing
course doesn’t only teach students how to understand writing, but will bring
them to another level as a writer. Whereas the First Year Composition course
teaches you the basics of college writing but never goes in depth and actually
help you understand how and why you’re writing the way you’re writing. WAW
teaches you the basics of college writing, and then goes to great lengths to
not only help you understand college writing as a subject, but as a way of
living your life as well.
First Year Composition is the course for all freshmen, otherwise
known as English 101. It is a course to establish basic fundamentals that
separate the student from high school and college writing. The course serves as
more of insight on how to improve your writing rather than teaching you how to
write, such as high school. What is exactly the goal of First Year Composition?
Nathalie Singh-Corcoran answered this in her essay “Composition as a Write of
Passage” when she claimed “The overarching goal of FYC is to familiarize you
with academic discourse…so that you can apply what you learn in future writing
situations” (2). Singh-Corcoran explains that the goal for incoming freshmen
faced with FYC is to take previously learned knowledge and start crafting their
writing towards that of a respectable college student. In high school students
were asked to write more towards an analytical sense without using their first
person opinions; however, in FYC students are given assignments that ask for
more of a personal foundation with an analytical edge. The goal of FYC
ultimately is to help the student realize that their writing style and
effectiveness does matter for future endeavors. Joseph Williams and Lawrence
McEnerney state in “Writing in College” that “However different your
assignments may seem…in each, you will almost certainly be asked to make a
point” (3). This statement exemplifies what is covered in FYC: finding your
voice and making your point. The establishment of a point unveils the argument
and the true opinions of the student. In FYC professors are helping young
writers to find their tone, argument, and thesis whereas in high school the
student was taught how to understand a reading and determine the intentions of
the author in the reading. Overall FYC is to help students step out of their
comfort zone of writing and discover their true potential as a writer.
Writing about writing teaches you not only how to write, but how to
understand writing as a whole. WAW will help advance your knowledge of writing,
it will also help your writing not just through new methods and theories, but
will help you express yourself better and pour your heart and emotions into. If
you don’t understand writing how can you be expected to put yourself on the
paper and actually be serious about it? Rhetorical situations are one of the
many different methods taught in WAW that will help you understand writing. It
allows you to ask questions about your writing and gain an understanding behind
why you’re writing. The Rhetorical situation asks you to look at your paper and
says who is my audience, what genre should this be in, is this paper going to
be effective, and of course the most important question of all what is the
purpose for writing this. Genre on its own will help elevate your writing
whether you’re writing a text or a research essay it will always have to be
addressed. As Charlene Beattie states in his paper Devitt describes Genre
perfectly “Genre awareness includes knowledge of such things such as
appropriate subject matter, level of detail, tone, and approach, as well as
usual layout and organization” (Devitt 36). The genre of your writing is so
important because if you don’t know what genre to write in then anybody reading
your essay will have a hard time understanding it. WAW doesn’t only help you
with writing it will also help you in you in life, it teaches you to be
organized and to be able to give something one hundred and ten percent you need
to first understand it first.. Everyone should be required to take WAW because
when you’re done with the class not only will you understand and improve your
writing you will also be a better person for it.
After the evaluation of First Year Composition and Writing about Writing
it can easily be determined that the better course to undertake for incoming
freshmen would in fact be WAW. WAW is the better teaching technique for
incoming freshmen because it covers all basis it combines both high school
writing and college writing. WAW asks the student to read, summarize, analyze,
and create an opinion for the assigned task. In FYC all the student is asked to
do is analyze the reading and make an informed opinion. WAW adds more
techniques towards a written piece that the student can use to make their
writing more persuasive and intriguing. Not only does WAW benefit the student
in their freshmen year, but it also prepares them well for the future. For
instance an essay that is required for a certain class is due the student will
be able to summarize and analyze at a quicker clip rather than a student who
was in FYC. WAW students have a better understanding of the rhetorical situation
that allows the student to write more effectively and efficiently. WAW students
learn that their writing means everything to their education. They also realize
that they have been great writers all along, but were never shown how to
appropriate their words into a concise paper. In the end WAW offers more to the
students than FYC.
Conclusion:
Writing is the key to judge the personality of the
writer and it is termed as the personality on the paper. Writing being the most
effective communication tool is focused by the institutions with a view to
enhance the capabilities of the students. First year course was an attempt to
provide basic knowledge about the effective writing capabilities and was an
attempt to polish the students for written communication.
First year course, English 101, provides a detailed
insight on the basic rules of effective writing and analytical writing
methodologies. This aspect is tested through assignments to the students on
different topics and requiring them to demonstrate their learning capabilities
with respect to the provided topic. The writing technique is improved through
Writing about Writing (WAW) and it is a technique requiring the students to
understand their writing capabilities and provides the ways to improve it. This
technique covers the high school and college writing methods as this technique
require the students to read, summarize, analyze, and create an opinion for the
assigned task. The ultimate goal of WAW is to realize the importance of writing
to the students and to make them ready to face the professional career with
full confidence.