English Composition

Many universities have a required freshman, or first-year, composition course. This is not always the same as a literature course, which focuses on literary analysis and interpretation; rather, composition courses are often intensive instruction in writing non-fiction, expository texts using academic discourse conventions. Writing curricula vary considerably from institution to institution, but may emphasize the many stages of the writing process (invention or brainstorming, drafting, revision, editing, proofreading), different forms of writing (narration, exposition, description, argumentation), and different portions of the written product (introductions, conclusions, thesis statements, presentation and documentation of forms of evidence, inclusion of quotations, etc). Pedagogies or approaches to teaching writing are grounded in a range of different traditions and philosophies.