The Mission of this Blog

I have two reasons for hosting this blog. The first is a bit ideal, I suppose. I’m holding out for a kind of salon that has its roots in a college class but quickly becomes a public sphere where folk come to build and try out ideas. My second is more practical. I want writing students to come into this space and act like composers (or rhetors) rather than college students. I’m taking my ENG 101 and 102 courses out of school. These classes are composition course, that is, formal situations in which students (and teachers) practice composing. Our topic of study, then, is "college composition" and not English. The second word in the phrase “college composition” is, for me, an interesting one because it describes an activity that many students don’t connect with “English” classes. The English word composition has its roots in the Latin verb componere, “to put with or together.” The first word in the course title, college, is also one I think most of us misunderstand, for we mistake “college” with “degree.” College is, at least etymologically, about relationships (the Latin word here is collegium, association). Relationships with whom? With other members of the immediate learning community, but as importantly, relationships with folks who have thought and composed across time. So, the course will give us practice putting together words and ideas in relationship to what we are reading and what other writers are telling us (these days, the theme I’m engaging is higher education).

I’ll follow this post with I want to offer some additional context for what I hope to happen here by adding discussions of three phrases, argumentation, discourse, and reflective practice.