Introduction The much-beloved belief that “every writer needs a reader” fuels the work we do in NYUAD’s First-year Writing Seminars (FYWS). It informs the way we think about writers, readers, and writing as a form of critical thinking and communication. We not only cherish that idea, we test it regularly by putting it into practice in one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse academic settings in the world. First-year students are joining a student population representing 115 nationalities, a group of people who speak more than 110 languages. So, as you read these essays, you are participating in a long chain of engaged transformations: these authors were once brand-new first-year students; as students in FYWS they became authors of original essays; and now you are becoming a reader of their wonderful work. If you are a student in one of our FYWS then, as you read Exit 11, we hope you’ll feel the implicit message in its pages: welcome to NYUAD. You are joining an amazing conversation-- as a reader and a writer. It is hard to understate the value of learning to write clearly, powerfully, and well. It is equally hard to understate the necessity of learning to read widely and wisely. One of the things you will learn in a First-year Writing Seminar is to read closely, to pay attention. This is the first step in learning to write for a reader, and it is sometimes the first thing we forget to do. As a result, the FYWS create opportunities for students to slow down and reckon with an array of complex, challenging, transformative texts. That sense-making impulse is one of the features that unify the collection of essays included in this volume. Read for the steady heartbeat of the work we asked these students to do: Pay attention. Be curious. Read closely. Envision your reader. Make arguments. Make sense. If you are reading this introduction, then Exit 11 is at your fingertips; and it is there, perhaps, because of a class assignment. You’ve been asked to read an essay or two in these pages. If so: courage. These pieces unfold in surprising
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