[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-597790-105":59,"doc-detail-597790-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","a-novel-idea-the-freshman-book-and-the-writing-center","A Novel Idea - The Freshman Book and the Writing Center","","A Nova Idea describes a college program that assigns an incoming freshmen “novel experience” to build a shared intellectual start through reading, thinking, and discussion. It explains how humanities professors select a contemporary award-winning novel, distribute a summer information packet, and require an essay response to faculty prompts during the first week. After classes begin, students attend a communal dinner discussion and submit essays for committee selection, publication consideration, and author interactions, culminating in the author’s campus lecture and reading.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/a-novel-idea-the-freshman-book-and-the-writing-center/597790/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/a-novel-idea-the-freshman-book-and-the-writing-center/597790.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"SANS","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-21","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":8},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does Wofford assign a book to incoming freshmen?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"To create a shared intellectual experience and to show that a liberal arts education emphasizes learning through reading, thinking, and discussing.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How do students prepare for the program over the summer?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"They receive a packet explaining the selected novel and expectations, including reading before arriving and writing an essay in response to a prompt during the first week.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What happens to students’ essays after they are submitted?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Humanities professors read all essays, select the best submissions, and the committee then reviews the strongest set to choose the top eight for further editing, communications packaging, and author-related activities.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},597790,1792612496,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":8,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":81,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":24},962090760505,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d","The CEA Forum  \nSummer/Fall 2006: 35.2  \nA NOVEL IDEA: THE FRESHMAN BOOK AND THE WRITING CENTER  \nAustin Baker, Ivy Farr, Elizabeth Norman, Deno Trakas  \nWofford College, like many other schools, assigns a book to its incoming freshmen each summer for them to read before they arrive on campus in the fall. Our goal is for them to share a common intellectual experience and to see right away that the emphasis of a liberal arts education is learning through reading, thinking, and discussing. And we'd like to focus at least one of their first discussions on a thought-provoking book, rather than on a topic such as slob roommates or whether or not to join a Greek-letter organization.  \nThis practice is fairly common, but getting students to read the book, engage in lively discussion, and make the reading meaningful is not common. Some students are not going to read a book over the summer regardless of how entertaining it is or how it relates to their upcoming college experience. Other students need to be convinced that reading it is worth their time and will apply to the curriculum and their education. In either case, some encouragements/threats are necessary to help us convince students to take this assignment seriously.  \nSo, at Wofford we incorporate the book into the freshman Humanities 101 class. The class is writing intensive, but unlike English 101, it's taught by professors from all of the humanities, and the topics vary widely from section to section, from year to year, ranging from Family Fictions to Cosmology to French Detective Novels. A committee of humanities professors solicits recommendations and picks a novel for the program each year based on several criteria. For example, this fall, many of the Humanities 101 courses at Wofford will fall under the thematic umbrella of “war.” We've chosen Paco's Story by Larry Heineman, a National Book Award-winning novel dealing with the Vietnam War. Staying true to the title of the program—The Novel Experience, which was the idea of the College President—we always choose a novel by a contemporary author. That author has to be willing to come to Wofford and speak to the student body in response to essays written by the freshmen, and he or she has to be willing to come for $5,000 .  \nDuring the summer, a packet of information concerning The Novel Experience goes out to the incoming freshmen. It informs them what the novel is and what they're expected to do—read it before arriving and write an essay in response to a question posed by their professors during the first week of class. They are also informed that their essays will be considered for publication in a booklet, and that the top eight essayists will get to eat lunch with the author.  \nSome students are ecstatic upon receiving this information because the novel or author selected is one of their favorites. That was particularly true of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and although Card turned out to be different from the person they had imagined him to be, the experience still made a huge impact on many students.  \nWith the regular start of classes, the humanities professors convene with their freshmen and announce that 1) yes, they WERE supposed to read the book, and they need to write a short essay on it by the end of the week, and 2) the entire class will be going to dinner together on the town the next night. The essay will be a response to a prompt or quote of the faculty's choosing that touches on a critical point of the novel. For example, last year, for Ha Jin's Waiting, they chose the quote, “All those years you waited torpidly, like a sleepwalker, pulled and pushed about by others' opinions, by pressure, by your illusions, by the official rules you internalized.” The students picked a character in the book who did or did not do what the quote suggests.  \nThe dinner, well, the dinner is fun. By lottery, each class chooses a local restaurant where they'll eat and discuss the novel. That's right—we take everyone out fo","cbCaikWISm2dQEte","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaikWISm2dQEte","pdf",24223,"English","# The Novel Experience Overview\n## Summer Selection and Preparation\n## First-Week Essays and Prompts\n## Discussion Dinners and Essay Review\n## Publication, Author Visit, and Closing Events","[{\"question\":\"Why does Wofford assign a book to incoming freshmen?\",\"answer\":\"To create a shared intellectual experience and to show that a liberal arts education emphasizes learning through reading, thinking, and discussing.\"},{\"question\":\"How do students prepare for the program over the summer?\",\"answer\":\"They receive a packet explaining the selected novel and expectations, including reading before arriving and writing an essay in response to a prompt during the first week.\"},{\"question\":\"What happens to students’ essays after they are submitted?\",\"answer\":\"Humanities professors read all essays, select the best submissions, and the committee then reviews the strongest set to choose the top eight for further editing, communications packaging, and author-related activities.\"}]","A Novel Idea - The Freshman Book and the Writing Center | PDF",1792085708]