We hear it all the time for Gen Eds— “why do I have to take this class? It has nothing to do with my major.”
This especially hits hard for Composition courses, where students get hung up on the course being “how to write a 5-paragraph essay” and “proper spelling/grammar.” They come to class and write their papers with only one audience in mind: the professor who is making them write it.
I’ve taught at a variety of colleges over the past 10 years and have seen this model often for Comp 1 and Comp 2. Comp 1 is about the writing process, understanding MLA/APA, etc. Comp 2 is about research papers. There’s more to both of these courses for sure, but if I had to condense the course overview to a few words, it would be those.
And thus comes the mindset of “I’m writing for a grade” instead of “I’m writing to demonstrate communication, clarity, and critical thinking.” And this is what I’m trying to curb. I spent a good chunk of my summer break reshaping Comp 1 and 2 for my university so students can walk away from these classes with this in mind; Comp classes are more than writing formal essays and preparing them for their upper-level courses that might demand 10+ pages. They’re about sharpening our thinking skills and learning how to communicate for any discipline or career path they encounter.
So I started here—how can I revise the course in a way that students will see the value of composition? I wanted to hit the ground running in week one, so I came up with an assignment they started on day 2, where students had to think about writing in the working world.
In this assignment, students had to find a real full-time job posting in their field of interest and dissect the qualifications, responsibilities, and requirements sections. The goal was for them to find every instance where writing shows up in the job. For every example they could find, they had to answer the following:
• Who would be reading that piece of writing?
• What would happen if the writing was done poorly?
• Take us through an example of a “headache” that poor writing would cause in this job.
After, I had them do some reflection. Specifically, I wanted to know which writing tasks from the posting felt easiest to them and which one felt challenging. To wrap it up, I asked them to share one communication skill they hope to fine tune while taking this class to get them ready for a job such as the one they found.
But of course, I was prepared for the inevitable “what if the job doesn’t mention writing?” This is fair, so we reviewed common language used in job postings that are still indicative of writing—words such as coordinating, corresponding, documenting, recording, reporting, presenting, etc.
How did this activity fare in my classes? Surprisingly well.
Getting students to think about writing in the working world was a good move on my part, as reading their reflections showed me we were moving in the right direction.
A few students looked at jobs that were designed to be more “hands on” and were surprised to learn how writing is still critical in these positions, such as one who looked into firefighting: “Before reading this job posting, I thought the firefighter job was mostly about physical work, emergencies and helping people. Now I see that communication and writing are also important.”
Writing in the working world also surprised some of my student athletes, who looked into various coaching job postings. A student who looked into football coaching remarked, “I honestly never gave much thought to how much writing is actually involved…But after checking out an actual job posting for an Assistant Football Coach…I realized that being able to write and communicate well is a massive part of the job.” Another student agreed by stating, “My interested profession consists of writing in many different ways like taking notes from assisting athletes, writing emails, writing down data, charting, maintaining records, and etc...I never really noticed this until finishing this assignment.”
Even my students in the Equine program learned how writing plays a role in various jobs, such as being a keeper or manager. One student noted, “Overall the job of any type of keeper or manager involves a lot of writing. Writing is a good skill to have if this is a job anybody is considering. From bookkeeping to instructions to incident reports writing is used in ways people don’t even think of at first.”
These reflections showed me I’m moving in the right direction by having students think beyond the 5-paragraph essay and focus more on the role of written communication. I’m hoping, as the semester progresses, they’ll begin to ask questions like “How can I get this argument across clearly?” instead of “How many pages does this need to be?”
In closing, I want to get students to see writing as a means of empowerment instead of just an evaluation tool. I think this will lead to different modes of thinking as they begin drafting out their essays. I’ll close out with one final comment from a student reflection: “Now I see that writing is just another way…to lead. Being able to explain things clearly and stay organized through writing could really help me succeed in this field. It definitely shows that the writing skills I'm working on in college are useful for way more than just passing an English class.”
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