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From the Preface
This text has grown out of a decade of experience teaching freshman composition at a large public university, a decade in which I have become convinced that if we are to succeed with our students, we must offer them a writing course that is geared to both their interests and their capabilities. We must move beyond the professional view that tends to condition us to think of writing as something taught for its own sake toward a practical approach that stresses the solid benefits a student will gain by learning to write competently. Most of our students do not, after all, plan to be writers. They do plan to be accountants, lawyers, engineers, doctors, teachers, and businessmen or women--and all of them will become citizens, consumers, most of them parents, and spouses. They have a right to expect a freshman English course that will contribute in a concrete way to preparing them for all of these roles. This text lays the foundation for such a course by stressing critical reasoning as well as writing and by attempting to create realistic writing situations.
From the Preface
This text has grown out of a decade of experience teaching freshman composition at a large public university, a decade in which I have become convinced that if we are to succeed with our students, we must offer them a writing course that is geared to both their interests and their capabilities. We must move beyond the professional view that tends to condition us to think of writing as something taught for its own sake toward a practical approach that stresses the solid benefits a student will gain by learning to write competently. Most of our students do not, after all, plan to be writers. They do plan to be accountants, lawyers, engineers, doctors, teachers, and businessmen or women--and all of them will become citizens, consumers, most of them parents, and spouses. They have a right to expect a freshman English course that will contribute in a concrete way to preparing them for all of these roles. This text lays the foundation for such a course by stressing critical reasoning as well as writing and by attempting to create realistic writing situations.
