Thoughts about College Writing, 2006-2023 by Trish Serviss

Instructions

pcserviss — 2025-09-17 01:06:59 UTC

After reading and marking things that stood out to you in the "Academic Writing in College, 2006-2023" PDF compilation, creating some writing (~200 words) that captures what you found interesting about the things you marked, capturing your thoughts. Write one or two short paragraphs (adding up to ~200 words) that capture your thoughts about some of the content you marked in the PDF compilation. (Make sure you attach a multimedia component that distills your thinking, at least in part (a gif, song, image, etc.))

If you are feeling stumped, try some of these strategies to get started:

1) Look back at what you marked across the PDF. Does anything repeat? Are there any patterns?

2) Look back at a place in the text where you had a BIG reaction. What about that area in the text was provocative to you?

3) Look back at the four texts in that PDF. In what ways do they align in their thinking? In what ways do they diverge? What do you make of that?

Freedom to Write - Jameelah Pickens

jpickens13 — 2025-09-29 20:23:12 UTC

Something I noticed while reading the articles that I annotated and emphasized is that primary high school educators don’t provide the necessary skill and encouragement to be on par with college level writing. Not to say that they can’t, but the high school curriculum seems like it is made to educate you enough to go into the working world, but not enough to advance to higher education. It makes me realize and appreciate the high school I went to, the teachers I met, and the rigorous courses I had to help me pursue my Bachelor’s Degree. They equipped me with enough tools from their own experiences on how to navigate college life academically and socially. The closer I got to graduating the more pressure there was to make sure I can handle the rigor, especially in my english classes. They let go of the majority of the rules to writing and started letting us write with our own brains while keeping harsh grading standards so that we could improve and wouldn’t slack. Reading these articles made me more reflective, appreciative, and contemplative as to what types of writing assignments I’ll experience and how ready I will be for them. While reading, it gave me the opportunity to release the standard that a test defines my knowledge. Standardized tests no longer define what I can do in the classroom nor what I can do in the real world. A quote that was recently said to me during my orientation in Aggie Success, “You aren’t here for a grade, you’re here to be an engineer. You’re here to go out in the world and make it a better place, make a difference.” by the Professor that was leading the session. It is really powerful and I begin to take this with me as a reminder that I should strive for good grades, but a C isn’t bad when the end goal is to become something that will far advance the future of my life and the world around me. Some things that I found interesting in the texts that I marked is that college writing seems easier(in some aspects) than what I expected. It makes me wonder if there is a method to the madness. What if high schools make it difficult, so that it reverse engineers our brains so that when we get to college it doesn’t seem so hard. It’ll make us think “Oh? This is all you’re asking for?”

Writing with a Different Perspective, Makayla Hum

mlhum — 2025-09-30 23:16:53 UTC

After reading and annotating the PDF compilation, it gave me a new perspective on writing entirely. In the 2006 article, what I found most interesting is that the author viewed writing as an opportunity to think. When I look back on this idea, it sort of connects with the 2023 article. This is due to how our thinking is being challenged, especially with AI becoming prominent these days. The 2023 author reflects on how, which I found important, that using AI basically limits our creativity and thinking. Of course, this is if you're using it the wrong way. That in turns can disrupt our ability to improve and become better writers and on how we critically go on about things such as thinking. But, anyways, it shows a connection because even back then-- thinking was very important since in college, we aren't bound by rules as we get more liberty to go beyond that.

That ties into what I found interesting in the 2015 and 2020 article. It displays that all the way till high school, we are expected to follow certain rules which can limit our writing freedom; but in college- they expect quite the opposite. That gives us students more range to freely express our thoughts when we think, write, and read.

snaddoquaye — 2025-10-01 07:34:14 UTC

After reading and annotating the PDF compilations I’ve really been able to come to a conclusion that in high school they lowkey don’t really set you up for college level writing; they kind of just give you a bunch of rules and you can only be sort of flexible with your writing. Whereas in college your writing is basically what you’re thinking, you don’t have to follow a specific format(so you can have as many points in your essays, you don’t have to have a thesis statement always etc; you’re able to actually freely express your understanding in whatever topic you’ve gained knowledge on, and you’re not just writing for a grade.

Another thing that I repetitively saw was the whole idea of teaching yourself to learn, unlearn and learn again; because as I said before, In high school you’re basically given a set of rules to follow to get the good grade you want, but then in college you really have to push yourself to not stay in the things you already know and being complacent thinking you already know stuff. Because a lot of new things will come up and you have to make sure to learn those new things or else you’ll either be behind or be at a place that’s okay but then you could be better.

Different perspectives on writing - Mitushi Jain

mtsjain — 2025-10-01 16:36:40 UTC

I found a few things interesting when annotating and reading the articles. In the first article, the author mentions how “writing is thinking”. This stood out to me. In high school, we wrote about ideas we were familiar with. We didn’t go beyond the scope of what was provided to us. Our goal in high school was to demonstrate a clear understanding of a topic. In college, it's different. Here, we need to show our curiosity and generate new ideas.

Moreover, the second and third articles mention students having to follow rules when it comes to avoiding words and writing essays. However, now we will have to “unlearn and relearn” (a concept in the first article) the rules and structure, which surprised me. Before reading these articles, I used to think high schools provided a stepping stone for college writing. But college writing is much different. I am amazed by the amount of freedom offered in terms of structuring the essays. Therefore, when we “unlearn” the rules and “relearn” how to write as we think, there are no rules to bind our curiosity. We are expected to delve deep into a topic. Both depth and understanding are what matter here.

Our choice - Katie Nguyen

kemnguyen2 — 2025-10-01 17:03:50 UTC

A lot of what I noticed in all the text is how they show a difference between high school and University writing. In high school, there is more of a structure and desired format. While university provided more freedom. I don't think that high school fully prepares students for college life but there are some aspects learned that aren't completely useless. In the article from 2020, the tables compared high school and college writing expectations. I found that some of the points weren't what I was taught in high school. The parts about repetition being allowed and not having a counter argument I felt weren’t realistic to the grading system I had experienced. The article from 2015 had really struck me as it highlighted how we learn when we are in elementary school to avoid certain words and have to follow the typical structure that followed us to high school. Overall the articles highlighted how we never really had freedom to write what we want and how we want to convey our message until college. And even now in college there is the idea of AI writing for us so that we don’t even have to write the paper ourselves.

The High School/ College Writing Classroom Disconnect + The Transition from High School to University - Marlowe Kuroki

mhkuroki — 2025-10-01 20:40:01 UTC

After I read over the four readings, my mind couldn't stop thinking about two of the readings, "The High School/ College Writing Classroom Disconnect" and "The Transition from High School to University." I believe I had a lot on my mind about both readings because there truly is such a big shift from high school to college, as said in the reading; however, they mention multiple reality checks, like how universities don't uphold the same rules of writing as they do in high school. For example, in the first reading, I mentioned that it talks about specific rules for writing essays that we are taught all throughout high school, including not using first-person or second-person perspectives. I feel like I've been so used to following those rules that writing the journal entries has been troubling since I have never used "I" so many times in a paragraph. Another thing that the second reading mentions is that not all essays use a thesis statement, and there were times in my high school English class where I had to ask for help to make my thesis statement so secure that it was its own separate grade. College writing gives me the relief I never knew I needed in writing and lets me create creative ideas in my writing instead of sticking to a strict rule-based outline.

Cascada Zou

jczou — 2025-10-02 00:51:37 UTC

After reading the four articles about the differences between writing in high school and college, I noticed that there are some things that I am familiar with. For example, the article by John Warner explained that there are certain words like “I” or “why” that are very wrong to use in high school writing, but in certain circumstances, these words are necessary. In high school, I was also taught to not use words like “said” or “I” so that was very familiar to me. The last article talks about AI and consequences of AI generated writing. I think that there is a difference between using AI to write for you and using AI to help you write. Using AI to help with grammar is okay to me, but using it to write full sentences or paragraphs isn’t. My english teacher in junior year allowed us to use AI to help our writing and I think it was extremely helpful. All of my other teacher strictly forbade using AI in any form for the classes. The third article compared how essays are formatted in high school and college. I think I actually like the regulations of college writing more, since I think it gives writers a lot more freedom to express their thoughts, rather than being limited to three points or a specific amount of sentences in a paragraph.

AI & college writing

yuxye2 — 2025-10-02 07:15:51 UTC

After I read the PDF, I realized that using AI in college writing can bring me more challenges and opportunities. For pros: AI can help me check grammar, give me more ideas, and help me with brainstorms. These can save me time. Sometimes, when I feel stuck, AI can also provide me with examples or suggestions to save me time. In this way, AI, like my friend, can help me make the arguments more efficient. However, if I use AI too much to write my essays, the professor will mark me for plagiarism, because I may use existing sources. Also, I will lose the opportunity to practice mt English writing skills, didn't develop mt own critical thinking, and organizing arguments. If the AI did all the work, I would not learn anything.

The cons: AI raises ethical issues, like plagiarism, copying other people's work that has already been published on a different website. So, I need to learn how to use AI responsibly, not substitute my own ideas.

The goal of writing

yihsu — 2025-10-02 19:16:06 UTC

The first three articles have basically focused on the differences between university and high school writing. Surprisingly, university and high school professors have very different expectations and requirements for academic writing. After entering college, students must discard many previously established rules and rebuild a new writing logic. I fully understand this, as I believe writing training isn't about climbing a staircase where each step builds on the previous one. However, I also believe that establishing writing structure in high school is necessary. It is only through the process of breaking down and reconstruction that we gain a clearer understanding of writing. I was also struck by the idea that “writing is a process of thinking.” I previously viewed writing solely as a means of expression, conveying existing knowledge and viewpoints to others. Yet I hadn’t considered how the writing process itself generates new questions— the process of writing is also the process of thinking through questions. This is also a theme conveyed throughout all four articles. The professor’s concern about AI writing is that it could result in humans no longer being able to think, thereby losing the most crucial element of writing and the fundamental difference between humans and AI.

The difference of writing in college to highschool

eehkang — 2025-10-02 19:59:38 UTC

After I finished reading and annotating all four short texts in the PDF, I was able to gain a new perspective on what college writing will be. In "The Transition from High School to University," the text illustrates the writing rules in high school and the expectations in college. The major difference that shocked me in college was that you have to write between one-third to two-thirds of a page for a paragraph, while in high school, you just needed five paragraphs. This big difference has shocked me because most of my paragraphs take about a quarter of the page. I was also shocked by the expectation of the end of a paragraph. In high school, you had to have an ending conclusion that reiterates the points that were made in the paragraph why they connect to the topic. But in college, the paragraph just needs to end when you have enough evidence and analysis that support the topic.

The next thing I saw was the repetition of the rules of writing in high school. In "The High School/College Writing Classroom Disconnect" text talks about how high school has placed a set of rules of writing. This has caused people to have limits on clearly idea what the topic is about. In "The Transition from High School to University," the text shows the difference between high school and college writing. The text shows that college writing has a limited amount of freedom in an essay, whereas college allows you to have a freer choice in writing. This shows us that high school writing has not prepared you for college writing.

Different perspectives on College Writing

sjlittleton — 2025-10-02 20:17:50 UTC

Altering reading the articles and annotating them, I was almost struck with a sense of realness. All throughout high school, I was being told that everything I do here is going to be done in college, just on a bigger and harder scale. In a way, that is true for some classes, but English is one of those classes where I feel they were most wrong about. All the articles I read today made me realize that the things I did in English didn't set me up to become a better writer, but instead set me up to input information and spit it out in a certain way. Just like a robot. Which I thought was interesting because now what has the writing world become afraid of? Robots writing students' work. It was just really interesting to see everything come full circle like that.

On that note, I would like to share my perspective on AI for writing after reading that last article. I feel as though AI can be a very helpful tool when it comes to writing. Especially if your AI gets to know a bit about you. It can help you when you're stuck or maybe access a memory you often forget but somehow tell everyone. I understand why many writing professors are afraid of AI due to the conditions they grew up in and are used to. But it is a new day and age where we all know AI is here to stay. I think it's better if professor guide their students to use it as a tool instead of shunning it away. Either way, students will use AI; that is just the truth.

The lack of similarities between high school and college writing

ahzamanian — 2025-10-02 20:29:45 UTC

After reading and annotating the 4 pdf's, the idea that stuck out with me the most was the lack of similarities between the high school writing and style I was taught to the now college writing style I will have to adapt to. High school always emphasized rules and always had the same 5 paragraph essay style. After reading the articles more specifically the " The Transition from High School to University " from the University of Toronto, it gave me a fresh perspective of what I need to adjust in my writing to be successful at the college level. Essays in college aren't limited by certain parameters like in high school and are more focused on the writer using more critical thinking and risk taking which is something I need to master as I adapt to college.

On the topic of AI, I disagree with what a lot of the articles' opinions were on AI. I think AI can be very beneficial and was something that allowed me to look at my writing with a fresh standard and has helped me grow as a writer a lot through instant feedback and allow me to really give myself a deep dive into my writing style, tone, flow and help me learn more and more on how to use certain strategies in my writing.

Ethan Huynh

ethhuynh — 2025-10-02 20:34:11 UTC

When I started reading the first text, it intrigued me on how the author, or writer, conveyed their thoughts and arguments. It was sort of poetic in a way. Lines that wove into another like knitting. Almost sort of like that. It hooked me on almost immediately as I kept reading. It was until I started reading the other texts that I found the trend of the main ideas centering around education, particularly college and high school with the last text being sort of similar. It was super mesmerizing that the texts emphasized that texts written shouldn't have many rules but allow the writer to have the freedom to convey their arguments or main ideas in a more free form rather than being bound by a set of "do-nots". It is even demonstrated as each text is different from one another. The first one emphasized the morality behind it behind a more smooth form, while another just puts a chart of what is different from high school and college. There’s even the visual inclusions of one text while another is just freely open without much of a filter behind their words to convey their point. This just highlights the issues behind how high school trains you for versus what is actually gonna be happening which you weren’t trained for.

Deprograming high school writing

klbeans — 2025-10-03 02:35:25 UTC

Of the 4 different texts I read and annotated I found The World Is a Text Writing by Patty Strong written in 2006 and The High School/College Writing Classroom Disconnect written by John Warner published on November 30, 2015 the most interesting. In The World Is a Text Writing Patty Strong really emphasizes how she strongly believes that writing is thinking. This really stuck out to me because I feel the same way. I have a love for writing because it really forces you to almost think outside the box to make choices that shape your writing and help to convey your full message and your tone. In this text she also highlights the fact that high school can really shape people into robotic writers and how high schoolers don’t write for joy but for a purpose vs. college is more free and is more of a choice, so professors are looking for less robotic work but artistic writing that sets people apart from one another.

Things that I found interesting about The High School/College Writing Classroom Disconnect by John Warner are similar to the idea that in the previous text by Patty Strong kind of goes over. John started off with something that really grabbed my attention. He basically said that when he begins teaching a new class he almost needs to “deprogram” things that students from high school do, which again touches on the structure that high schoolers are programmed to write in. I find it so amazing that he believes writing is not black and white. Both of these authors highlight the fact that we need to change the way high schoolers are taught to write and I believe the same.

Writing should help students think, learn, and grow. - Janet Siu

jansiu — 2025-10-03 05:54:47 UTC

There are some things I found interesting in these four texts. Every text is loosely connected other than text two and text three that are very closely connected but they all revolve around some idea related to writing. Text one tells us the author's point of view and how they think that writing is thinking and as you write, you explore new ideas and thoughts that you may have not had before and grow. Text two and three are pretty similar and both tell us how different the writing expectations are from high school to university which begs the question to me of why doesn't high school just teach it the way university does? I do think that writing should not be confined to the five paragraph structure you get taught in high school and that the length of your essay or text you’re writing would depend on what kind of text you’re trying to write. Then text four tells of the usage of AI in recent times as this new technological development. Where writing is supposed to be done by students to help their intellect grow, AI generating essays takes that away from the students and doesn't help their brain grow the way it would if they did it themselves. This kind of connects to text one too where they say writing is thinking so if students use AI instead of writing, they aren’t really thinking. Though AI has its uses outside of just writing but it also has its harms which all depends on what kind of job you do, as AI can help businesses but can hurt artists who have their art taken without permission to help train AI.

Writing is Thinking. -Vivien Lee

vclee4 — 2025-10-03 06:42:07 UTC

After reading the four articles, the idea of "writing is thinking" sticks out to me, I strongly agree with the statement. The process of writing is incorporated with brainstorming, elaborating, and explaining your thought process, and all of that requires thinking. Thinking while writing allows new ideas to form and also promotes creative writing. Writing is not just copying down words, it requires thinking skills: what the main idea is, how to support the idea, and giving examples. The first article highlights the importance of creative thinking when writing an essay, it explains how high school students don't necessarily put thoughts in their writings. In college, focusing on the creative freedom is a key element to a good essay, which leads us back to the idea of thinking when writing. The 2015 article by John Warner elaborates the importance of creative freedom when writing essays, Warner explains how in secondary school, students are taught structured, planned way to write an essay, but in college, rules like that don't exist. College focuses more on the purpose as well as the type of audience you have.

Evolution of Writing

rpottabathini — 2025-10-03 07:49:37 UTC

What stood out to me the most in the “Academic Writing in College” readings was the idea that writing is thinking. In high school, I was usually taught to write in a way that proved I understood something. For example, I would write about a book we read in class and try to repeat the main points that the teacher explained. In college, the expectation is different. Writing is not just about showing what you already know, but also about discovering new ideas while you write. I thought this was interesting because it makes writing feel less like a chore and more like a process where you actually learn. Another thing that caught my attention was the “rules” we are told to follow in high school. Most of us learned that essays should always be five paragraphs, that we shouldn’t use words like “I” or “you,” and that we had to follow a very strict structure. In college, writing is more flexible. Instead of fitting into a formula, students are expected to think about audience, purpose, and context. This can be harder, but it also gives us more freedom to express our ideas.

Finally, the discussion about AI really made me think. If writing is closely connected to thinking, then letting AI do the work for us could mean we lose out on the learning process. Writing helps people grow, and if machines replace that, we may not gain the same skills.

Freedom is efficient

nsran — 2025-10-03 08:22:35 UTC

Some of the things I found interesting is that all the papers talking about the rules of writing somewhat agreed on how it wasnt efficient to have that method be used. Either that or that they agreed that writing in college is a lot different than writing in highschool. The paper that had the chart comparing highschool writing to college writing was pretty interesting to me because it made me think about why they would instill these rules for 4 years of your life and then change once you get to college. That seems pretty counterintuitive if your main priority in education is for the student to learn. Was there different objectives from highschool writing than there was for college writing? I could list some benefits of those rules but my experince was a little different for highschool writing. My first two years of writing changed a little bit from middle school but then in Junior and Senior year I took ap lang and lit which gave us more of a specific objective to complete which was different from my previous experience. That kind of writing was pretty rinse and repeat and only specific to lang or lit I think. Also I for sure think AI has no benefits for writing other than maybe trying to understand the prompt or text better if you cant get any other sort of guidance.