First-year seminars at Wesleyan, as described in the “Academic Journey”, are designed to “introduce” students “to a variety of topics” as well as to “the importance of writing at the university level” and constructing a “scholarly argument.” Students are expected to produce upwards of twenty pages of writing in their first-year seminar, learning how to construct solid academic arguments to succeed in their four years at Wes. In this way, the FYS is a uniquely Wesleyan approach to first year composition courses that have long been staples in academic settings (see our bibliography for more history on FYC).
Researchers of first-year composition have long shown that introductory writing courses work best when they focus on teaching students about writing, rather than trying to train students into perfect academic writers. First-year writing-intensive courses should introduce students to library resources and citational practices, sure, but perhaps more importantly, first year writing courses should make students wonder: What is writing? Why do we write? Why do we write in this particular way as opposed to other ways? Who decides what counts as good writing, and who benefits from those decisions? Whom might they harm? How could our ideas and practices about writing participate in efforts to redress unjust systems, institutions, and ways of thinking?
So, too, should first-year seminars get students wondering about how they write. What choices can they make? How do our writing contexts and disciplinary and genre expectations shape those choices? What is my writing process? For many first-year students, the notion that writing is a series of choices seems antithetical to previous education that focused on writing as learning to produce particular forms such as the five-paragraph essay or the research paper. By giving students the chance to develop an understanding of writing as a process and as a mode of learning, we allow them to place themselves in the work that they are doing, which, in turn, encourages an active, rewarding learning experience.