Excellence in First-Year Writing 2012/2013

For writers, one of the most challenging and rewarding activities is to engage with other writers’ work. We learn a tremendous amount from exploring how writers formulate questions, respond to other thinkers, appeal to their readers, utilize evidence, create beautiful phrases and images, and participate in meaningful conversations. At the University of Michigan, our introductory composition courses foster such engagement through peer review workshops, which help students to identify themselves and each other as writers. In an effort to celebrate this kind of work, the English Department Writing Program and the Sweetland Center for Writing established a first-year writing prize in 2010. With generous support from the Sweetland Center for Writing and from Andrew Feinberg and Stacia Smith, both of whom earned English degrees from the University of Michigan, we honor students who have produced writing of exceptional quality, and we share their work so that other writers may learn from, and feel inspired by, their examples. Equally deserving of thanks are the many students who submitted essays for the first-year writing prize and the instructors who encouraged and supported them. This year’s particularly difficult selection process reminded us of the wonderful work that happens every day in hundreds of university writing classes. As writing teachers, we feel grateful for our many opportunities to learn from the challenging questions, intellectual energy, creativity, and dedication that our students and their teachers bring to our classrooms