At its best English 101 can serve students like a reset button of sorts, providing a space where they are encouraged to rethink the meaning and structure of writing. Throughout elementary, middle and high school writing is relegated to English classes and within those classes it is further constricted in terms of how it should look and sound. English 101 overtly introduces students to the notion that they will have to write adaptatively throughout the remainder of their college and professional lives.

Cognitive flexibility is one of the most important qualities that a functioning adult can possess and while one quarter is not necessarily enough time to foster said quality to its fullest, it can at least plant the seeds. An awareness of the ever-changing audience, intent and the overall rhetorical situation will serve students wherever they go, whatever they do.

Aside from cognitive flexibility I think English 101 can help give a little bit of confidence/hope to the fledgling writers who enter the class often thinking their writing is mediocre, if not altogether bad. The class can emphasize that to be “bad” at something one has to have had an immense amount of proper training and practice and lacking these they are not allowed to think of themselves as “bad,” just inexperienced…