RRR: "Does Going to College Mean Becoming Someone New?" By: Kevin Davis

 

Kevin Davis’s “Does Going to College Mean Becoming Someone New?” (1986) is a narrative and informational essay about his experience as an English major transitioning from high school writing to college writing. Davis explains how frustrating and difficult it was trying to change his mind set in order to write on the college level that was expected from his professors.  Davis’s love for reading and writing made him choose English as his major, but soon he realized that he could not produce the type of writing style required of him. Davis’s purpose for this essay is to highlight challenges students can face when entering a new academic discourse community in college and how to function and succeed in it. The audience who could gain the most by reading this essay would be high school and college students, as they can learn about discourse communities and the different insights relating to writing on a satisfactory college level.                

After reading this essay, we grasped an understanding regarding Davis’s experiences in his academics and how he struggled with feeling like an outsider when it came to his writing. It was intriguing to see Kevin go from getting praise in high school for his writing, to subpar writing in college. Having to adapt to a whole different writing style that he wasn’t used to is something many of us college students can relate to and struggle with as well. Once Davis began to understand that there were different insights and aspects to academic writing, he slowly began to accept his role in his new setting. Whether using rhetorical, formalistic, or epistemic context, Davis shows us that to be a successful writer in college, we must become personally and intellectually involved in our discourse community. We agree with Davis that we can write about a topic or issue better if we have personal experience or is actively involved in the topic. Once Davis’s mind set changed, he developed a new writing technique that was beneficial to him and bettered his skills.

Originally, Davis felt as if he had to become someone new in order to successfully write on a college level. He stated, “I was living on the boundary between academic and home communities, between maintaining my identity and accepting another. I found I didn’t like the someone new I was being asked to become.” (Davis par 2). After changing his major and with time and insight, he eventually learned how to become part of his academic community. Davis explained, “Finally, we have to become personally and intellectually involved with the community, wanting to be a part of it; without personal involvement, the formalistic and epistemic changes are merely window dressing.” (Davis par 12). Davis learned the error of his ways by stating, “In my own case, I was unwilling to become the person the literary studies community required me to be and to develop the worldview the community expected.” (Davis par 22). Davis learned to accept his new academic discourse community and as a result, he understood and improve his writing skills.

Davis, Kevin. “Does going to college mean becoming someone new?” Connections: Guide to First Year Writing at Clayton State University. Fountainhead Press, 2019, pp. 178-184.