For first year writing courses, I don’t care if my students leave with a love of English. I want my students to leave impassioned by something, impassioned by anything that they care about.  

The first step in enjoying reading and writing, in my opinion, is finding a topic or interest that one is invested in. Throughout their pre-collegiate education, students in high school have been hammered into reading and writing about topics that have been chosen for them with prompts that have been assigned to them. I don’t want my students to write in this fashion, I don’t want them feeling like they are confined to certain topics and writing styles like thesis-driven essays, five paragraph essays, and book reports.  

I want my students to search within themselves and discover what they love and hate. I want them to find something that they care about, something that makes them so ecstatically happy, or so incredibly enraged, that they want to talk about it, they want to tell the world about this amazing concept or terrible fear. I want them to find these things within themselves- to find these passions and realize them, and to discuss them. Then, and only then, do I want them to write about them. As their instructor, I don’t care to read about essays they don’t care about. I don’t want to read things that they aren’t proud to have their name on, or pieces of writing that they don’t give any thought to. I want to read what they want to write about, because what they want to write about is what they are going to put the time and effort into making “good writing.”  

This is a strange concept sure, because as a class there needs to be some set standards and guidelines and prompts for initiating academic writing. But beyond this, beyond the course, I hope that my students are inspired in to talking, reading, and writing about things they care about. If I can teach an introductory English course and fulfill the expectations of the class while simultaneously encouraging my students to search within themselves, at this difficult and new time in their lives, to find the things they are passionate about, and to realize them, I think I would have done my job. The first step in teaching “good writing” is initiating an interest in the topic, and I want to help my students find those interests first, so we can write about them second.