Revisited article: Confessions of an Ex-College Freshman

By: James Moffett
Publication: The Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1
Date: Winter 1995

Summary: In this reprint of an article first published in The Quarterly in 1980, James Moffett tells how he flunked his first theme in college and gained a new understanding: writing isn't, as he learned in high school, producing adult-sounding, teacher-pleasing prose; writing is saying what you really think and feel or what you really want to put over. Moffett's "confessions," and the retrospective commentary written for this 1995 issue, challenge educators toward "strenuous innovation" in writing education.

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