What's a Major Concept? Group #3

            Like all other courses, this course revolved around a few main topics. Some of which were very broad, and others which were more direct and will stick with us for the rest of our lives. English 1101 is supposed to steer us down a path of writing that is professional, yet still our own. I believe that one of the major concepts that is being taught to us is creativity. Whether we’re reading our own pieces, or those of other’s, we are using our imagination to see further into the reading than just the explicit. Our professor greatly urges us to be creative in our writing because it shows the reader that we have personalities, not just monotone boring mumbles. This concept leads into the next: communication. I believe that people will better understand what is going on if they can relate to what they are reading and as young adults, we have unique voices that can be understood by many readers. Whether we’re telling a story about our childhood, or analyzing the genome of corn, writing is supposed to deliver a message. Thus, communication is a key concept in writing of this course.

            Now one concept works as the backbone of all the others: revision and editing. Entering this course, I would usually edit my own papers and would rarely ask a complete stranger to proofread my work. However, this course has taught me to use the resources around me and accept the criticism as constructive instead of personal and derogatory. Passing our papers onto almost the entire class has not only improved my writing, but it has made me comfortable with my mistakes. Following our first rough draft for our first project, I realized that editing was not the only thing that makes a paper better, but the entire first rough draft as a whole. As Anne Lamott describes in Shitty First Drafts, first drafts are inevitably the core of any successful piece of work. Stephen King did not publish the first draft of his first book. He worked towards making it the best it can be, through a multiple of drafts AND editing! Thus, revision is one of the major concepts that drives this course.

            Last but not least, genre. Genre works as an organizer of ideas. This course has taken us across a wide spectrum of works. Each being categorized under a different genre, our professor has opened our eyes to a load of different subject matters. Whether it was the significance of a handwritten letter, or the purposefully done typos in a scholarly article, each piece of work fell into its own category. I realized that the genre I was trying to write for shifted my writing style. Not necessarily in a negative way, but of course writing a freeverse poem and a research paper on corn will be differently worded.  These major concepts have led us through ENC 1101 and have set up a backbone of writing for the rest of our lives and we thank our professor, Joe Cirio, for his guidance.