Can First Year Composition Be Applied to Other Academic Courses?

So far in these journals, I've examined the benefits of first year seminar and their impact on other academic and post curricular situations. In Wardle and Downs' "Teaching about Writing, Righting about Misconceptions," the authors examine one of the major disadvantages of first year composition: the inability to transfer this style of writing to other academic courses.

In theory, first year composition should be able to prepare any student for their area of study.  After all, every student needs to write at a collegiate level during their college career. However, just because a student is trained in collegiate writing doesn't mean these skills will transfer to other areas of study.

"Even when FYC courses do attempt to directly address the complexity of "academic discourse" they tend to operate on the assumptions with little empirical verification. Our field does not know what genres and tasks will help students in the myriad writing situations they will later find themselves. We do not know if writing essays on biology in English courses helps students write lab reports in biology courses. We do not know which genres or rhetorical strategies truly are universal in the academy, not how to help FYC recognize such universality." (Wardle and Downs, p. )

I spoke to two anthropology majors (class of 2015) about the impact their FSEM class had on their majors. The first student (Sarah) took "Cinderella and Harry Potter" (an examination of the progression of fantasy into the 21st century), which was taught by a professor from the English department. When asked if this particular class prepared her for the style of writing used in anthropology, the student said it did not. "It was really just a fun class," Sarah said. "I think it was more like an introduction to the college experience."

The second student (Shelby) took an FSEM taught by faculty from the Sociology department, "Media Images of Mothers," which examined various images of mothers seen in film and television. She also disagreed that this particular class taught her the style of writing needed in anthropology. "Every department writes differently,"  Shelby said.

The difficulty faced by Sarah and Shelby is not an uncommon struggle among college students. English collegiate-writing varies greatly from the styles required for anthropology, biology, and even history. Although the first-year experience is in many ways essential as an introduction to the "college experience," FYC can be distracting to the future biology major who needs to write lab reports, or to the future anthropology major who will need to record field work.

How can FYC be altered to accommodate non-English majors?

Many universities have divided their FSEMs by department to make the transition easier for students. The University of Mary Washington offers a variety of first-year experience courses, ranging from vampires in cinema (film studies) to the solving mysteries in math (mathematics). The benefit of taking a freshman experience tied directly to one's major is the probably that skills needed in upper-level courses will most likely be taught during the seminar. Oh course, this poses a problem for the undecided major, or for the future math major who chooses to take "The Idea of Cool" (an FSEM formerly taught under the English department) based on their interest in popular culture.

The end result is that while FYC can assist students in preparing for college-level writing in general, a 100-level class is the better way for students to learn the type of writing particular to their major.