The following document is the Vision Statement for all First-Year Composition Classes here at Prince George’s Community College. It was unanimously adopted by the English Department in the Fall of 2021 and the principles guide class design and classroom practices in all EGL 1010 Classes.
As you read through the document, think about what you have already learned about academic writing.
- How does this vision statement seem similar to your previous experiences with writing courses? How does this vision statement seem different from classes you might have taken in high school?
- What do the statements here tell you about what college professors might value?
- Do any of these statements surprise or confuse you?
Vision Statement for First-Year Composition
Prince George’s Community College
Department of English
First-Year Composition (EGL-1010 and EGL-1020, EGL-1100, EGL-1320, EGL-1340) at Prince George’s Community College should be guided by current research and best practices in the field of composition and writing studies.
Our department affirms the following:
Rhetorical Knowledge
Effective communication, including effective writing, is fundamentally rhetorical. Clear, effective writing cannot happen without an understanding and focus on audience, context, purpose, and genre as writers negotiate and compose a variety of texts.
Processes
Composing processes are a means to discover and reconsider ideas.
- Composing processes implement a variety of technologies and modalities
- Effective composing/composition is best developed through non-linear, flexible, recursive processes. Writers develop skills through experience and practice; therefore, courses and assignments in first-year composition should include multiple, recursive, and reiterative activities that allow for and even encourage unsuccessful attempts as part of the process without penalizing students as they learn.
- Research is process-oriented and should be understood as a continuous, cyclical process rather than a straight-line, destination-oriented task. To join the conversation means recognizing that the conversation–and the student’s understanding of their argument in the context of that conversation–can and should change and be revised.
Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing
Critical thinking and reading are foundational for advanced academic writing.
- Critical thinking uses strategies such as interpretation, synthesis, response, critique, and design/redesign—to compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those from appropriate sources.
- Critical reading includes a diverse range of texts, including digital sources.
- Critical reading moves beyond comprehension, encouraging writers to reflect and conduct close readings to observe patterns and develop connections.
- Critical composing addresses authentic questions, utilizing critical thinking and analysis of primary and secondary research.
Student Agency in a Community of Writers
FYC should empower students to see themselves as capable writers with the agency to contribute to important conversations inside and outside of the classroom.
- Writers develop their agency more effectively by participating in a Community of Writers.
- Students develop agency and authority as writers by completing projects in which they are personally invested.
- Writers develop agency through writing, thinking, and self-reflection.
Agency entails responsibility to a larger writing community, both within the classroom and within other contexts. Responsibility includes acknowledging the concepts of intellectual property and ethically representing others’ ideas.
Writing and Social Justice
The writing classroom should be a safe, inclusive space for social justice that respects students as learners capable of achieving high standards.
- A responsible, effective FYC sequence must take into account the CCCC Demand for Black Linguistic Justice, especially acknowledging that academic language and standard English are socially constructed terms and thereby contribute to linguistic racism and discrimination.
- Composition courses have a responsibility to interrogate power structures inherent in writing instruction, production, and reception.
Reflect on Your Reading
- What surprises you most about the Vision Statement based on your original understanding of FYC Courses? What items did you not expect to see? What items did you expect to see that might be missing?
- Based on the Vision Statement, what type of writing do you expect that students would be asked to do in a FYC course here at PGCC?
- Is there anything you disagree with? Why or why not? How does this Vision Statement align or agree with the readings from the first part of our textbook?
- How does the Vision Statement reflect the Threshold Concepts for writing in the previous chapter?