The principles of invention, style, and arrangement are often adapted into the writing process of First Year Composition courses to help students understand how to create texts. This paper proposes that these principles can also be adapted to introduce visual design into the writing process. I will present a list of basic visual elements that can be presented to FYC students to strengthen the arrangement and style of their writing and conclude with a suggested method of evaluating the use of those elements in student writing.
Although we challenge students to take risks with their writing and ask that they challenge themselves with new ideas, we constrain them with an MLA-approved page design, resulting in boring blocks of gray that require readers to read every line in order to find the most important or interesting information. I advocate the use of headings, typography, color, figure-ground contrast, proximity, similarity, and good continuity as design elements in student papers.
Teaching students to use these principles need not consume class time or replace material from our traditional composition syllabi because students are already familiar with most, if not all, of the principles outlined here based upon their experiences with other, professionally-produced documents. I propose that teaching these document design principles in FYC writing will help students learn problem-solving techniques, make convincing arguments by understanding and improving the style and arrangement of their text, and create documents that are more likely to attract and retain their readers.