Recognizing the Significant Role of Literature in Teaching College English

Abstract

Purely based on my experiential knowledge, this article does not engage with the current so-called “academic” scholarship on the topic. It does not present, according to a critic, “empirically-focused and data-driven research” as the majority of traditional writing studies normally do nor does it “approach and theorize writing as a multidimensional practice and object of study” following what is known as a so-called “methodical analysis.” Free from and unpopulated by unnecessarily top-heavy “academic” and “educational” jargons, this new and original experience-based article, that boasts in not being academically derivative and adulterated, argues that College English (or freshman composition) should be as much literature based as it is currently based on other writing mechanics related to technology and social media, and practiced through what sometimes seems to be only elaborately and long drawn out steps in the writing process with the assessment criteria impractically divided into minor as well as minute differences. The course should be more open and flexible in its syllabus and be taught with a reading of suitable literary materials as a major component and literature based writing exercises, among, of course, the other interesting topics of contemporary culture.