My Personal Freshman Orientation: An Introduction to a Blog on Composition & Rhetoric
This is a blog that will cover the topics of writing, both creative writing and the act of writing for college classes and English essays. Over a series of posts and articles, I intend to provide readers with better insight on the structure, rules, and elements of writing for English classes, writing at the college level, and writing for professionals and aspiring writers alike. The goal is to leave you with a little more knowledge on how to write on any subject, in any format, and for any audience.
It’s the kind of blog that I would have desperately wanted as a student who, years ago, went into his first freshman college composition course and could only smile quizzically while the instructor spouted off phrases like “thesis statement,” and, “Rogerian argument,” while I suppressed that feeling of trickling, leg-shaking panic on the inside.
It’s the kind of blog that, over a decade later, as a professor of English composition and rhetoric who sees the same dawning looks of incomprehension in the faces of many of my first-year students, I would want to point them to and say, “Hey, it’s alright. You’re not alone and you won’t be left behind. This will help.”
When I was a younger writer in my twenties with the vague notion that all writers must seek to write the Great American Novel, I was given the advice to “Write what you know.” Unfortunately, no one wanted to read stories about an online sales manager in a small medical office who would write the same sentence in a short story seven different ways over the course of his lunch break.
When I was a graduate student at Mills College studying writing for my Master’s, I received the much better pearl of wisdom, “Write the thing that you would want to read.” And so, I am writing this for me and for you.
I am writing this for Past Me, who wanted to be a better writer, or to write anything at all, but needed a gentle and step-by-step introduction to all the things that go into writing for school and writing creatively for fun.
I am writing this for Present Me, who wants to centralize all that I have learned and taught in a way that’s approachable, easy-to-navigate, and completely free for students and writers alike seeking help and advice on writing essays, writing stories, and building and sustaining writing habits.
I am writing this for Future Me, who, as it turns out, is a lot like Past Me: still enthusiastic about the act of writing and excited to help others realize that they are much better writers than they give themselves credit for.
And maybe all of that means that I am writing this for you.
