I’m prepping Introduction to Literature, our second semester writing course, which I haven’t taught in a very long time, so I revised the vision statement with which my syllabus begins:
To learn to write well is to pursue a connection between your facility with language and the content, intellectual and otherwise, of your character. I do not mean by this that those who cannot write well have no character or that writing is the only way that people can demonstrate their character. I mean, simply, that you cannot write well if you do not try to make this connection, because not to try is to fail, as a writer, in holding yourself accountable for the quality of your own thinking. Or, to put it another way, it is to fail to take your own intellect seriously.
To write well and with purpose, it is also necessary to read with purpose, which means to approach texts not simply as something you are required to read, but as repositories of ideas, as entries into experiences, that deserve and, in the end, may command your attention. I do not assume that each student in my class will enjoy the texts I have assigned—and you will have an opportunity write about the experience of not enjoying them, if you so choose—but I do expect that you will take those texts seriously, as opportunities to learn something about reading, about literature and its place in our culture, and about yourselves. If you do that, I think you will find our class discussions and the assignments I ask you to do interesting, challenging, and worthwhile.
As a teacher, I measure my success not in how many A’s or B’s I give out—since grades reflect the surface of learning, not necessarily its quality—but in whether my students have begun to take on the responsibility of having ideas and of dis-covering within themselves the audacity (because I would be lying if I told you it did not take courage) to attempt to communicate those ideas in words that will command a reader’s attention above and beyond the fact that they were written in response to a classroom assignment. That responsibility, after all, is the foundation of both meaningful citizenship—in the sense of an engaged and critical participation in society—and the pursuit of a successful career, two core objectives of the liberal arts education you are here to acquire.