Welcome to the New Age in English Composition

No one likes to take these required General Education courses, especially in English or Math. Ok, maybe there are a few nerds out there who don’t mind, but for the most part, few college students appreciate being subjected to required courses outside of their major. Such a waste of time and money! So boring! So unnecessary!

Well, I have heard your complaints, and I am here to help. Having taught freshman composition for more years than I like to admit, I think I have learned a thing or two, as the Farmer’s Insurance commercial claims, and I am here to put it into practice. Let my experiences, mistakes, successes go to work for you, so you can benefit without wasted time or expense. You can thank me later.

I remember testing out of my own ENG 101 course when I was your age, but because I was the only freshman to do so at the tiny college I was attending, I was forced to take the course anyway. (It wasn’t the first time administrators didn’t know what to do with me, but that’s another story.) As an English major then, I really didn’t mind (what’s more writing, right?), and as a veteran English professor now, I can honestly say I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in what I would be requiring of my own students later. I make it a practice never to subject my students to something I am not willing to do myself. I’m nothing if not fair.

That said, over the years, I have chosen, used, and rejected textbooks that just didn’t seem to connect with my students. I have assigned and omitted writing projects that didn’t accomplish what we’d set out to do. I have experimented, tried and failed, tried and succeeded, and the culmination of all that is this textbook, Do the Write Thing. (I wanted to call it The Write Thing #justdoit, but my editors were afraid Nike wouldn’t be amused.) Either way, this book is my attempt to do the right thing as a teacher of writing to help students of writing learn to do the “write” thing the right way. Just a little play on words for the fun of it.

And that kind of describes the approach I hope this text takes: playing with words, for the fun of it and for the benefit of learning to become better writers while enjoying (or at least not hating) the experience. After all, if you have to do it, you might as well make the most of it, right? That’s my philosophy anyway, and I have tried to apply it to this textbook and this course in English Composition. It also explains the conversational style I have used throughout the text, avoiding that stilted “I have a Ph.D. and you don’t” approach that most textbooks seem to adopt. Zzzzzzzzzz.

Another thing I wanted to eliminate was all the unnecessary pages and pages that most textbooks include that no one reads, even if the teacher assigns it. I know. I have gazed on the blank expressions of too many freshmen for too many years. Here, I have tried to include only select interesting readings that apply to the concepts being explained. I call it the Goldilocks Guide: Not too few, not too many, just right. I am a firm believer in “less is more,” but I also subscribe to the directive that if I assign it, I mean it, so I have tried to make that as painless as possible.

I also have gleaned from my years in the freshman composition trenches what students need to learn and how they need to learn it. Students come from all backgrounds, of course, but most bring the same skills and lack thereof, and this textbook attempts to address those needs—no more, no less—with accessible explanations, directions, and assignments. The e-book format makes it affordable and easy to click on links and submit assignments all in one convenient location. No need to lug a lot of heavy books or notebooks around in a heavy backpack; just bring your laptop and you’re good to go. Every day.

I hope this text will prove to be the answer to many problematic issues English professors and students have encountered over the years. Let me know what worked for you—and what didn’t! We want to improve wherever we can. As E. E. cummings, a favorite American poet wrote, “I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.” Translation: teachers can learn from students, just as much as the other way around. I know I do all the time.

And if you’re still bummed about having to take a freshman composition class, remember what my funnyman colleague Willie Steele says: It could be worse. It could be math.