Ideas About First-Year Composition that I Am Trying to Hold in My Head Simultaneously

• The purpose of FYC is to help prepare students for the kinds of writing they are likely to face in the college/university VS The purpose of first-year writing is to help students become more confident, curious, self-directed writers.
• It is possible, in FYC, to prepare students for academic writing VS It is impossible to prepare first-year students for the kinds of writing they are likely to face in college/university.
• Teaching academic writing is our job VS Teaching writing, broadly conceived, is our job.
• Students want to learn how to produce effective academic writing VS Students do not really care much about academic writing.
• Learning academic writing will be of some value to students aside from passing courses/earning grades VS academic writing will not be of much value to students.
• We should care about our obligations to our colleagues as regards FYC VS We have no obligation to anyone other than our students.
• We have an obligation to help our students enjoy writing more and suffer less VS These are not our obligations at all.
• We should help students understand themselves better as writers VS We should help students learn how to understand contexts for writing and how to function within them.
• When teaching writing, we should focus on the writer VS When teaching writing, we should focus on the scene of writing.
• I have an obligation to extend the developmental aspects that the "Murray" model of writing makes available to students ("Writing is a way of exploring the world") VS I have an obligation to help my students anticipate the academic writing ahead of them in college.
• In a first-year writing course, it is our job to consciously work against what previous writing teachers have taught students about writing and replace misconceptions with more accurate information VS That is not our job.