About the Composition Program
What we teach
As part of
the LAS Core program, all students are required to take 52-1151,
English Composition I and 52-1152, English Composition II. English Composition
I takes students from expressive to informative writing, from the personal
to the public. In English Composition II, students write a series of argumentative
papers with documented sources. Students are encouraged to develop topics
that build bridges between their composition course and the area of the
arts/communications that brought them to Columbia.
How we teach
These courses
are taught by the process approach to composition. The process approach
emphasizes revision and not product. Most time and energy will be spent
on revising drafts of works-in-progress. In a workshop environment, students
focus on writing strategies that can be used in a variety of situations,
not on rules that are rigid and limited in application. For example, the
emphasis is on enabling writers to analyze the needs of any given rhetorical
situation, to focus on role, audience, and purpose, not on providing formulas
for organization such as comparison/contrast or definition. The composition
classes are student-centered. This means there are generally no lectures,
although your teacher will certainly introduce and explain material, concepts
and assignments. But most class time is spent creating text, revising,
conferencing, and using small group work for revising, editing, and proofreading.
Students keep their writing in a portfolio for end-of-the-semester evaluation.
