This week’s New York Times Sunday Review contains an essay from the director of Lang’s First-Year Writing program, who happens to be the person running this website. Here’s a snippet of “The Soul-Crushing Student Essay”:

A decade teaching young writers has taught me a great deal. First, we need to value more the complete and complex lives of young people: where they come from, how they express themselves. They have already lived lives worthy of our attention and appreciation.

 

Second, we need to encourage young people to take seriously those lives they’ve lived, even as they come to understand — often through schooling and just as often not — that there’s a whole lot more we’ll expect of them. Through this, we can help them learn to expect more of themselves, too.