Welcome to your first semester of college composition! We're excited to work with you this semester and to help you grow as a student and writer. This academic year, we'll be focusing on the art of the essay.

In the introduction for the Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction, Scott Russell Sanders says that the term essay “suggests an experiment, a testing, a weighing out.” He follows:

Experiments in language are messier than experiments in laboratories, because words do not parse the universe as neatly as numbers do, but the spirit behind both kinds of experiment is the same: to discover a tentative truth. (xvii)

Over the course of the next two semesters, we will reintroduce ourselves to the art of the essay. Our definition will become: an essay is an artful way to discover, to seek, to explore. It is a chance to question what we think we know. We will take risks and be vulnerable in order to connect with others and add something new to our world.

Image of desk with typewriter glasses books paper

Photo by RetroSupply on Unsplash.

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By focusing on the art of the essay as our theme in First-Year Composition, we will begin to wonder about everything again. To do so, we must establish a foundation on which to build our understanding of essays themselves. Think about the following questions:

- Why do we write?
- What is an essay?
- How can essays serve my community?
- What can I learn from writing essays?
- Can essays be art?

By studying the art of the essay, all of us have the chance to practice serving our communities and deepening our understanding. Find a field of study that is perfect and in no need of innovation. Can you think of any community that is not in need of development and progress? Search for a person who knows everything. We need essays now more than ever, so we can continue to grow and change as individuals and as a society. We can serve whatever occupation, role, industry, lifestyle, or job by writing through the beautiful issues and challenges we face.

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The answers to these questions are going to inevitably lead to more questions. Good. That is exactly where we want to begin. Thinking begets thinking. Once we’ve thought through the questions we need to ask, we will begin to write about what we find. That cycle is a perfect circle.

There will never be a point where we are done learning. Nor will we ever have written enough essays to call it quits. We will practice writing something new, something that might not work, something that causes a reader to be influenced. In doing so, we will learn how to wade through the wild nature of bias, the crisis of 24-hour information overload, the digitally connected world, and our own minds.

We are so excited to write alongside you and to explore the art of the essay over the next two semesters. Don’t let this opportunity to write on topics that you’re passionate about pass you by. In school and in life, such opportunities don’t present themselves very often. Every essay we write from now on is a chance to discover something new, a tentative truth. There is no longer an excuse to not write and revise until something incredible shines through. Our first-year composition classes are now a testing ground. Let us capitalize on this occasion and learn to wonder by writing again.

Zoe Robertson writes about the importance essays (Links to an external site.): "The essay collection has always been the open door to new ideas. Offering a buffet of food for thought, essays are the vehicle for dynamic perspectives and passions that can often go on to inspire in their reader something previous undiscovered, such as a new way of perceiving the world, a reignited drive for wider change, or maybe just a well-worded phrase to print on an encouraging poster."

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For this lesson, then, we will:

Explore/Learn
- Read in The Hub
  - Preface: "NCTC's First-Year Composition Curriculum: An Overview" (pg v)
  - Preface: "First-Year Composition Focus 2020-21: Inquiry-Based Writing (What is an Essay and What Does It Mean to Study the Art of the Essay?)"
- Read in This I Believe:
  - Vol 1: "Foreword" (xvii), "Introduction" (1).
Collaborate/Connect
- Complete Lesson 2: Introduction to the Art of the Essay.
- Complete Lesson 2: Discussion, This I Believe.
- Complete Lesson 2: INRW Check-In.