What is College Writing?

Understanding the Difference between High School and College Writing

Entering college is a time of significant change and transition for most students, and following closely on the heels of this change is the college writing experience, which is often marked by dramatic shifts in expectations and outcomes. You might think about high school writing versus college-level writing in terms of ordering takeout versus dining at a lively, vibrant restaurant. Both serve different purposes for different, well-intentioned reasons.

Ordering takeout can feel fun, even indulgent after a long week or if you’ve made plans to stay in. You can eat on your couch in pajamas if you want to, and if using a third-party delivery service, you don’t even have to leave your home. You might open an app on your phone, such as Uber Eats or DoorDash, punch in an order from your favorite restaurant in town, and have dinner on the table within the hour. It’s predictable and convenient. There’s comfort in knowing what’s coming, when it’s coming, and how it will arrive. These are conveniences that we are afforded when we opt to use a service that is designed to offer a limited menu catering to a particular market that expects some elements of the presentation to be pre-packaged.

Much like takeout, many high school writing classes are designed to serve a limited audience, using a limited number of composing strategies or pre-packaged presentation styles. The purpose driving these limits stems from the challenges most high school English teachers face, which include working long hours, managing large class sizes, undertaking the time-intensive task of grading hundreds of student papers each semester, and facing pressure to teach students how to write to pass standardized tests rather than to write for real-world audiences. That’s not to say that high school English teachers don’t teach students to write in profound and meaningful ways; they most certainly do, but college writing instructors tend to teach smaller classes and college writing outcomes tend to be less standardized than high school curricula. These demands are worth acknowledging because high school teachers (and students) are taxed with constraints that alter the purpose of learning. The end result is that many students come out of on-level or even advanced high school English courses knowing how to write for timed exams or how to compose five-paragraph essays that center around a formulaic thesis statement, but few students arrive at college prepared to write organically structured essays informed by rich personal experiences and research. High school writers learn exact recipes that create consistency in their approach to planning and executing a writing project in much the same way chain restaurants use the same recipe to satisfy patrons’ expectations for well-known dishes. This is why the bowl of broccoli cheddar soup you order from Panera in Fort Worth tastes the same as the one you order from Panera in San Antonio. Consistency isn’t bad. Consistency just limits you to one way of creating and communicating.

In contrast, college-level writing should feel like a slightly more upscale dining experience. When you visit a swanky new restaurant, the atmosphere draws you in from the moment you arrive at the door. The smells and the sounds coming from the kitchen awaken your senses as you walk to your table. You sit down to a larger menu of options, and you can enter special requests or substitutions with the chef. As you wait for drinks, appetizers, entrées, and eventually dessert to fill your tablescape, you look around to absorb conversations swirling around at nearby tables. There is a little predictability to the sequence of dining out—for example, being seated, ordering, waiting, dining, and paying the bill—but there’s also a lot of surprise interaction and stylish nuance. The rhythms of the restaurant provide an ambiance that you can’t package into a styrofoam to-go box; they unfold naturally. With this metaphor in mind, let’s dive into some specific differences you’ll want to be mindful of as you approach the composition of your first college writing project.