Graduate Thesis

Successfully Developing Writing Confidence in Early College Writers:

Tutoring and Teaching Strategies to Bolster Student Motivation and Application

Introduction

The Beginnings of Self-Confidence in the Student, and in the Writer

The development of writing skills and the process of learning are lifelong endeavors. The most vital human beings among us continue to learn throughout their life span, essentially from the cradle to the grave. The ability to learn effectively provides the student with self-confidence and with the motivation to master new skills and disciplines. A healthy amount of self-confidence is integral to the learning process and to the composition process.
If a young student is lucky enough to develop a healthy perception of positive personal ability as a result of a balanced and loving infancy and childhood, he or she can arrive at school more or less equipped to be further educated, unless there are other severe intellectual or physical handicaps as roadblocks. Self-confidence will fluctuate throughout students' lives, but it is during their grammar school and high school years when their thinking styles can most negatively or positively influence the efficacy of the education process offered by teachers, tutors, mentors, parents, and peers. The college freshman begins a successful, mediocre, or doomed academic career based on his ability to begin and complete specific writing tasks. This is perhaps the most crucial period in a college student's life. Does he or she possess enough self-confidence that achieving writing success is possible? Self-confidence can still be improved on in college, but it requires a concentrated effort on the part of the faculty, tutors, and other college support services. In my thesis, I will solely be discussing self-confidence and writing confidence, though experts quoted may be employing the term "self-esteem," "self-image,"or "self-worth" in referring to self- confidence. When I use the term self-confidence, it is to denote when an individual feels secure in trying and learning something new. Writing confidence simply means that a student feels that he or she will think of a topic or idea and be able to explore it to some kind of conclusion on paper. Self-confidence helps move a student towards achieving writing confidence.

The Formation of The Self

Though the self is composed of many differing physical and mental systems, specific parts of the self may contribute to or detract from the learning process. The learning process that leads to an awareness of the self begins with language development. The American sociologist and pragmatist George Herbert Mead said: "Intelligence and the development of self are directly tied into language "(qtd. in Sutinen 85). Early readers are praised because parents recognize that only through language facility comes a chance for a child to gain more knowledge and a higher social rank. As their language skills grow and their bodies propel them towards new experiences, children begin to consciously feel and to discuss how they feel. A metadiscourse soon evolves as children start to recognize how they move and react and make decisions. Finally, an underlying permanent discourse is established between the conscious and the conceptualized self. Indeed, the self has now become objectified (Sutinen 86).
Perceptions like "I am riding this bicycle well" and "It doesn't seem like this clay bear I am molding is turning out as well as John's" start to become daily dialogues in the minds of children. Essentially from this point on, life becomes a gazing into two different mirrors. One mirror reflects the world around and how the body feels and acts in that world; the other mirror reflects what is happening in that first mirror. This becomes the individual's perception of life.
In his book The Civilized Person, Dr. Reijo Wilenius explores the connection between civilization and self-confidence. He states that "A human's self-control and self-confidence are based on this view of self-perception. It is beyond a doubt that animals show intelligence when building a den or a nest, but in human intelligence the intelligence itself becomes self-aware and creates a new component of self-confidence" (Wilenius 34).

The Formation of The Student

At this stage in human development it becomes important to fit into a group of peers and to have an identity of some kind in that group of peers. The first requirement for an understanding of selfhood to grow is for the child to become adept at language and socialization skills. After this process is firmly in place, the child can begin activities of play and gaming that lead to role playing (Sutinen 91). In role playing children are able to begin measuring their performance against others. Certain perceptions are imbedded into the consciousness of children as to how capable they are in life. The beginnings of self-confidence lie here in this mode of introspection.
For the sake of this thesis then, self-confidence will continue to refer to an individual's belief in an inner strength that can carry him or her through adversity, stress, and large amounts of hard work. This definition is encapsulated in a student's response to what he thought writing confidence was all about in one of his answers to my survey questions: "I feel that I can get to a final draft eventually if I believe in my ideas for a paper and if I manage to keep on writing."

This student is also defining the feeling of self-confidence that comes with the successful completion of a task that has required planning, creativity, hard work and the ability to follow through throughout all these specific tasks.
Competent instructors of writing seem to know when students of normal self-confidence levels are having difficulty getting started in the early part of the composition process. If the instructor can gently assure the student that a draft will slowly begin to take shape, then often a draft does begin to take shape at the hands of the early college writer. If the instructor is not available to offer support, often the student with a self-confidence problem succumbs to feelings of inadequacy and of failure in having not gotten through the writing task. Part of the role of the writing instructor is to determine which students suffer from a lack of writing confidence and then help them to have faith in their own composing process. This thesis explores the nature of self- confidence, its relationship to writing confidence, and specific strategies teachers and tutors can use to reach writing success.


Overview

I. Pages 1- 4 Introduction

Formation of the Self and the Student Writer


II. Pages 6- 29 Chapter One

Understanding Writing Confidence
Terminology, Developmental Theories, Classroom Models, and Research Data


III. Pages 30 - 53 Chapter Two

Classroom Strategies to Develop Writing Confidence
Assignment Applications and Classroom Theories


IV. Pages 54 - 75 Chapter Three

Tutoring to Improve Writing Confidence Methodologies, Tutor Techniques, and
Case Studies


V. Pages 76 - 83 Conclusion

Supporting Self-Confidence and Nurturing
Writing Confidence



Chapter 1 Understanding Writing Confidence

My goal in this chapter is to discuss what is meant by self-confidence and to show some of its manifestations in student performance and in the writing process. Many classroom methodologies and specific assignments fail to account for a lack of self-confidence in the student, and certain students are never reached as a result. Not only does self-confidence play into an individual's ability to see the writing process to its conclusion, it also plays into the individual's ability to receive help in the classroom. A student's writing success is hampered if the individual suffers from low levels of self-confidence.
In order to get through the writing process successfully, an individual needs a strong understanding of self-hood and tenacity of character. This positive ideal is contained in an individual's indisputable belief in his or her learning abilities: "I am capable of facing challenges head on, and even though I may not always succeed or have trouble progressing, my thoughts and ideas have value and contribute to society as a whole."
Without this belief, the composing process seems hardly worth the effort.

Terminology

There is a tendency for people to use various terms interchangeably. Those terms include self-image, self-esteem, and self-worth just to name a few. Many of these terms have strong connotations and often lead to inaccuracies when using them to describe student performance and writing. For this reason, I will be using the terms self-confidence and writing confidence exclusively in this thesis, but experts that I am quoting may be using the terms self-esteem or self- image in discussing ideas related to student development. Since there has been much debate over the place of self-esteem in the curriculum of our schools, I feel it is necessary to look at that term early in this chapter. Author and philosopher John Deigh offers an excellent definition of the word self-esteem. In a 1983 essay on ethics he writes:

One has self-esteem if one's spirits are high because one believes that one has made or will make something of oneself, that one has been or will be successful in one's life pursuits. Conversely, one lacks self-esteem if one is downcast because of a judgment that one has failed to make or never will make something of oneself, that one doesn't or won't ever amount to much. (Deigh 135)

Self-esteem at its most basic level is the simple respect of oneself and the opposite of self- hate. Deigh goes on, "Self-esteem is had by persons whose lives have a fairly definite direction and some fairly well-defined shape, which is to say that self-esteem requires that one have values and organize one's life around them" (136). This entails thinking like: "Life seems to go well for me -- I must be a good person, and I can usually accomplish what I put my mind to."
On the opposite side of the psychological spectrum is self-hate. Self-hate is characterized by Dr.Theodore Rubin:
Self-hate can enter into the personality makeup of the person with poor self-image rather easily. Not only can the failure to complete a difficult task cause initial problems for a person and frustrate him or her causing anxiety and a downgrading of self-image, but soon the person can begin attacking himself or herself as a result of frustration with his or her own abilities. Failure in this respect, especially as in the case of the writing process, or in using the computer to communicate or invent, can conjure up such a vision of self-loathing that there is simply no returning back to the task at hand. Instead of merely working on the problematic area, an individual can easily become evasive and just give up on a specific task altogether. (9)


Self-hatred can also prevent the formation of healthy self-esteem both at home and in an academic environment. Socially self-esteem plays directly into student motivation, and family life often determines whether a social identity becomes a positive or a negative one.
When student social self-esteem has been studied, the focus has been on social skills and family life. The young student has to be successfully social in many ways; he or she has to have friends, there has to be satisfaction in these friends and the ability to keep these friendships up or to end them if need be. (Kalliopuska, Heikuainen and Larsio 7)

Something special happens in the home environment for self-confidence to grow. The student has to feel that the parents offer love and support, and in turn, that the student can offer the same in some context to the parents (8). The young student must feel that he or she can create positive and negative change in many environments and that this "skill" only improves with age.
It would seem a miracle when a student whose parents and instructors are distant excels academically, because the student is missing both the building up of self-confidence and the mentoring of parents. However, when there is some writing ability and original ideas hiding within a student, it is possible to activate them during those first college semesters with a curriculum that emphasizes college-level academic standards and an interactive classroom.

The Critical Years in the Development of Self-Confidence

The very significant years for the formation of self-confidence can occur when a person is between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. According to medical director Dr. Arnold Kerzner at Human Relations Service of Wellesley, and a private psychiatric practitioner in Belmont, MA:
They're [early teens] not sure who they are. The body's self-esteem is out of whack. So is the social self-esteem: "Who likes me, who thinks I'm cool?'; the cognitive self-esteem: ‘Am I smart, am I dumb?'; and the psychological one: ‘Am I OK, am I not OK?' To put all this together is almost impossible. And your hormones are raging, and you're trying to concentrate on what you've got to do in terms of learning. (Koch 14)

Within this volatile period of development, the teen must still be capable of going through the writing process in order to complete much of the school work in high school. The brainstorming, the outlines, the drafts and the revisions are all attention-demanding steps of essay writing. For the youth experiencing this turbulent time who can somehow focus and who also possesses some kind of self-confidence, this period of churning emotions can produce writing that begins to show those first signs of artistry, maturity, and dedication to a difficult task, which is negotiating the composing process successfully. These students find they have something to say, and they are willing to take the time in order to negotiate the writing process and say something to the best of their ability. The students who can't harness this energy or whose parents don't try and help them with this process often begin a slow spiral downward in their high school grades and writing ability.
Socioeconomic factors greatly affect the family life of students everywhere; however, in this thesis, I will not be attempting to find financial solutions for the economically disadvantaged students who are at a high risk of failing English 101; I will be mentioning learning solutions that students, instructors, and tutors can use to lessen the damage of poor academic writing preparation.


It is of course possible to improve self-confidence later than during the middle teen years. Most college instructors have seen ability and attitude improve in their freshmen students. Often a student may find that the college environment actually begins a period of increased writing output because of the wealth of new experiences that occur as a result of a new independent lifestyle. When the instructor emphasizes supportive practices such as the use of tutoring and peer review as learning tools, self-confidence can be improved even at the college level.

Understanding Self-Confidence

There are countless ways of understanding self-confidence. Perhaps the most straightforward definition involves how a student makes sense of past experiences. Strong experiences involving failure and disappointment weaken self-confidence. On the other hand, experiences that involve winning and success strengthen self-confidence. From small works and projects that are completed as planned evolves a picture of the self that tips the balance towards a belief that things can be accomplished (Kalliopuska, Heikurainen, Larsio 6). School assignments that remain unfinished or are completed poorly begin to show youngsters a level of incompetency and frustration within themselves.

Self-Confidence Emerging in the Young Writer

In the book Motivation and Emotion by Paul Thomas Young, there is an excellent summary of the psychological manifestations in the development of actual self-confidence. In it, the reader can see that our sense of self is often based upon outside experiences:

The growing child learns to evaluate himself in relation to other persons in his group. In the earliest years he sees and hears himself compared with others: John is bigger and stronger than you. He can fight better. He can knock you down. Harry can run faster. Dick can throw a ball farther. Jim has a finer house, a bigger yard, nicer clothes. Joe's folks drive a better car. Bill's father owns a store but your father is only a janitor. It may be the other way about: You are the biggest and strongest child in the group. You can fight better, run faster than the others. You have the bigger house, better car, nicer toys and play equipment. The process of comparison and evaluation goes on and on. In street fights, on the playground, in the classroom, at home, this self-versus-other comparison continues endlessly. (521)

So often it is said that we can transcend our humble beginnings. Unfortunately, negative memories can surface again and again to twist our perceptions of our societal worth, and this can affect us during the writing process. In the essay "How Writing Finds Its Own Meaning" Donald Murray states that

During the processes of rehearsing, drafting, and revising, four primary forces seem to interact as a the writing works its way towards its own meaning. These forces are collecting and connecting, writing and reading. Writing may be ignited by any one of these forces in conjunction with any other; but once writing has begun, all of these forces begin to interact with each other. (3)

To get through the various stages of the writing process that are necessary for achieving writing success, an individual needs to be able to stay focused in order to negotiate this lengthy process with confidence and purpose. Sadly, self-confidence and the writing process seem rarely to be examined in terms of their interdependency. In order for students to make sense of the writing process they must possess a strong conviction of their own abilities to formulate ideas, log these ideas, shape them, and finally write up an essay that convincingly covers a subject.
In college, a student often has to choose a topic for an essay, go through the brainstorming process, either on paper or in the mind, pick a focused topic, write a draft and finally create and refine several revisions. I say create a revision because a student needs a certain mind set to develop a significantly reworked piece of writing. All these activities need a good dose of self-confidence for them to be negotiable.

Student Perceptions of Self-Confidence

My research into student awareness of their own level of self-confidence has continued throughout my three years of working in the Writing and Reading Center of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. With the aid of questionnaires and student interviews, I have looked into the exact perceptions of self-confidence and writing confidence in students themselves. Also in the course of my three years of tutoring at the Writing and Reading Center, I have been able to observe the progression of students' writing confidence through a series of course work in Basic English Review (English 100), Critical Reading and Writing (English 101), Composition and Literature (English 102), and Business Communications (English 265).
I have also been able to witness this phenomenon from the front of the classroom, as well as from the safe haven of being a peer tutor and even a collaborative tutor (a job which makes one a liaison between the instructor and the student groups attending the Writing Center for tutoring). I have also acted as a writing fellow for classes in Management and Quality Control in Manufacturing for Dr. Laura Forker. As a writing fellow, my chief responsibility was to edit and to give students written feedback on their final reports. From within these four roles, I have been able to get a sense of not only what motivates a student, but also what doesn't motivate a student. Indeed, I have encountered any number of factors that have cramped and enhanced the learning process in all my varied roles at the Writing Center.

Characterizing the Student Possessing a Lack of Writing Confidence

In addition to problems with self-confidence, many other issues - social, educational, intellectual, and personal - can affect a student's writing success. So what exactly characterizes a student who suffers from little to no self-confidence resulting in an inability to draft an average essay? How can you tell if a student lacks confidence in the classroom? Within the collaborative group? In forming a specific criteria for this, I believe that the first sign is simply that a student doesn't quite reach "normal" academic success even though his or her SAT scores are at least average. The following points are indicators that are possible to spot easily in a classroom environment or in a collaborative group tutoring situation. These points constitute the most visible signs of a student suffering from a lack of writing confidence.

Inability to form a powerful opinion on a topic quickly, coupled with an unwillingness to "suspend disbelief " and come up with some conviction pertaining to the subject matter under discussion. For example, the instructor gives out a writing assignment that reads: "Argue for or against abortion in a group discussion and then write a report based on the findings of your group." The student with a self-confidence problem will be distressed about discussing the topic with the group. When it comes time to actually write up what was "worked up," the student will have few notes with which to write an essay.

Little ability / little joy in coming up with a solid viewpoint on a particular subject and arguing it strongly and confidently. The draft on abortion is due next class, and the writer simply can't force himself or herself into "getting anything together," even for the grade, in time for the class. The student attempts to write in the dorm room, the library, and finally, the cafeteria with few results. Maybe the student gets the beginnings of a paragraph onto the page.

Resistance to conferencing with an instructor about a writing problem or an exam problem. Finally, the actual abortion essay is due and an exam is coming up on the readings, and the student stops going to class altogether. The student doesn't seek out the professor. The rest of the scenario plays out like most freshmen drop-out scenarios. All communication shuts down between student and teacher.

A feeling that "I don't like to read" or "I'm not good at English."
This situation is the really heinous scenario because it prevents the joy of writing and reading from ever surfacing.

Comparison and Contrast: a Success Story

I would like to describe a tutoring session where the sense of more self-confidence in a student created a positive movement towards composing a solid essay. During the composing of a particular essay, Pam developed a stronger picture of herself, and the writing process came together for her for the first time all semester as a an actual draft suddenly emerged in front of her. I would argue that her writing confidence was at an all-time high when she put together this comparison and contrast essay for English 101 in the spring of 1998. I do believe that a student's writing confidence can fluctuate wildly within a semester, from semester to semester, and certainly from year to year.
Pam was one student in a group of three that made up my 4PM appointment on Tuesday afternoons during the spring 1998 semester. In the group was one male student and two female students. The discourse in this group was a mix of "high and low." As a collaborative group tutor, I usually would set the work ethic with the language and tone of an English instructor. After the group began to partake actively in the weekly tutoring appointment and consistently brought in invention work, complete ideas and drafts - I tended to fall more into a peer tutor role, though my age (33) and position of authority obviously still communicated a certain acceptable parameter for group behavior and interaction.
In this particular group, the females would giggle a bit at each other's ideas and the male would often speak quietly when he was unsure of the relevance of his ideas. These were the nonverbal signs of their lack of maturity and of feelings of uncertainty in the students, and these behaviors were as a readable as the headlines of a daily paper. Truly these were telltale signs of a lack of writing confidence. On a particular day Pam, Krissy, Joseph and I were discussing the mechanics of the comparison/contrast essay. We had worked on the point by point method favored by the course instructor when it came time to discuss possible topics. It was Pam's turn to speak about her topic. I asked her first about what her purpose and audience statements were going to be. She answered without hesitation:
"I'm going to compare and contrast my old boyfriend of six years to my new boyfriend of 3 months and show what the differences between respect and disrespect are."
The group listened attentively as a Pam continued. "I was thinking about what topic I know a lot about when the essay was first assigned and I want to write about this experience because it really opened up my eyes."
No giggles. There was no doubt in her face.
She showed the group some distinct brainstorming and outline notes and she showed us some first draft pages. We discussed narrowing her audience and corresponding purpose statement to young women involved in abusive relationships who are in denial and in need of direction. In fact, she took interest in writing the essay in a tight format that could produce an informational brochure for the UMass Dartmouth Women's Center. When I saw her finished draft at our next tutoring appointment, Pam had written an informative piece that gave advice through recounting her own personal experiences. This episode is not offered up as a measurable study of what suddenly focused Pam's writing, improved her attention to detail and lessened her writing apprehension. Instead, it is simply an epiphany in student writing that emerged seemingly from a growing confidence in the ability of the self to finish a writing task. The remarkable element is that during that afternoon, Pam's writing had found a purpose and she had discussed her ideas without shyness, giggles, or apology. Now there was self-assuredness in her writing process because she knew that she had what it took to get the draft done. Within this assignment her self-confidence was a force that aided her in achieving writing success, whereas months before this kind of focused resiliency had seemed impossible.
Pam's first draft came back with a note to revise mostly for grammatical errors. Normally, Pam, Krissy, and Joseph all wanted high grades on a first draft - revision is often not so joyous a process for freshmen - they would all complain if they received a low grade from the instructor, even if they could rewrite for a higher grade. But, for the first time that semester, Pam didn't carry on about the paper coming back with a need for revision - she still believed in her work and eventually received a high grade.

Self-Confidence as a Motivator

When using the term self-confidence in this thesis, I am referring, then, to a strong sense of self that is characterized by an individual's belief in personal success as something attainable. For these individuals a draft seems at least a possible outcome of the writing process. Self- confidence can fuel an individual towards motivation and action. If we are to believe in the words of the myriad of motivational speakers who all claim that in order to achieve success, you have to be able to set goals and act upon them, then we must also accept the relationship between goal setting and self-confidence: a person with confidence not only makes goals - he or she often enjoys the process of making, struggling towards and achieving those goals. A student positively negotiating the writing process from invention to completed draft is not unlike a salesman making a goal based on a certain sales quota set for him by his company.
To excel at anything, a person must articulate a goal. It is common knowledge that those individuals who write down their goals are more likely to achieve them than those individuals who don't. With persistence in the writing process comes content development. Writing success is no secret voodoo ceremony, it is achieved through self-confidence, goal setting in the invention phase, and exercising perseverance in seeing the writing task through from beginning to end. Certain students may have difficulty with this process as a result of their inability to stick with the invention process to its conclusion. These students may feel that their ideas have little or no value, or since they are "no good at English," that there is no hope for them in even composing a simple essay.
Clearly, it is more difficult to try to provide students with self-confidence if they have been "ignored" during their formative years by their own parents and elementary school teachers. If this kind of student has had a difficult time in high school English classes and has developed the opinion "I'm no good at English" or "I hate to write," then it will be all the more challenging to work this student up to a certain proficiency level even by community college standards. Some of these students can possess average to high IQ's - yet they cannot excel because they are "damaged goods." Interestingly, if an emphasis is put on student growth by a motivated instructor who also is intent on growing, then persistent self-doubt can be minimized.
In a motivational study involving the assessment of teaching efficacy in several Swedish colleges and trade schools, a five-point category of evaluation was employed including:

Teacher Enthusiasm: How often the teacher used engaging classroom methods and delivered exciting classes.

Growth Enhancing Stimulation: How much the instructor put towards getting the students to understand goals and helping them with the process of achieving them.

Clarity of Teaching: How understandable were the instructor's lessons to the lowest, middle, and highest achievers in the class.

Teacher Specialization: How lessons and
assignments were tailored to fit each individual student.

Social Relationship Harmony: How good a collective spirit existed in the class and how good a study environment the class provided.

The study findings showed that only the instructors who were always open to personal growth were consistently able to deliver instruction that fulfilled all of the standards in the five different categories (Nyberg and Ruohotie 37). If at all possible, writing students lacking self- confidence should somehow be matched with these superior instructors.
Doing poorly academically, performing weakly on the playing field, and finding a block within the writing process itself can all cause students to begin hating themselves. Left unchecked in the freshman year of college, self-hate most certainly raises the potential for dropout. Much of this turmoil can be minimized with a school system in place during the middle school years that promotes the tutoring of special needs students and the counseling of students who have difficulty in the classroom environment. If they are not getting parental support, then it is obvious that the school has to provide some form of psychological assistance. As problem students (today identified as high risk students) begin to like themselves better, or even just accept themselves, their self-confidence will improve. This will at least give a chance for their work habits to improve as well. In the interim, we, as instructors, must pay them special attention.

Student Perception of Self-Image in the Writing Process

In order to arrive at some general information on how instructors, tutors and students themselves feel about the writing process as it applies to their own self-confidence and to the self- confidence of others, I put together a questionnaire that I distributed at the 1998 New England Peer Tutor Conference, which took place at the University of Massachusetts Lowell on March 28th. My questionnaire was primarily designed to seek holistic essay answers on self-confidence and writing confidence-related topics. I avoided numerical rating scales because I was primarily concerned with obtaining longer responses from all the respondents. The respondents consisted of professional tutors, student tutors, and students. In my questionnaire I employed the term "self-image." I used this term for the sake of simplicity and for its evocation of a general concept.

The questions that I asked involving perceptions of self-image consisted of the following:

What has been your experience with tutoring students who seem to be suffering from a low self- image?

How do you define self-image; how do you measure it?

How often do you tutor people with poor self-image?

Do you feel that your own self-image is high or low?

Have any events or experiences changed your own self-image in the last few years?

Have you noticed if the high school English class experiences helped or hurt freshmen students when they came to college? In other words, were they prepared for college level English? Would you say mostly yes or mostly no?

Do you personally feel that a student has to
have a good self-image in order to write decent essays? Why or why not?

Do you have any special techniques that seem to work well for tutoring students with poor self-images?

COMMENTS, CONCERNS, COMPLAINTS:


I will be examining 29 responses to this survey. The questionnaire answers were fascinating and seemed to touch on many of the ideas that I am examining in this thesis. Rather than work in order, I will begin by examining question 2: How do you define self-image; how do you measure it? I grouped the responses into three basic answer types, which resemble the following 3 composite responses:

Self-image has to do with how happy you are with yourself and how capable you feel about performing certain tasks. Self-image can be measured through everyday behavior and whether you are achieving clearly defined goals in your life or at school.

Self-image has to do with being able to perform to certain expectations and to be capable of independent working. It can be measured by the amount of effort needed for reaching certain outcomes.

Self-image has to do with how we react to change. It can be measured through indicators of self-confidence or self-esteem.

In examining these 3 composite answers, we can see the general trend of thought that points to self-image as being an affirming force that determines how well we are able to negotiate certain projects. How effectively we can accomplish specific tasks acts as a measure of self- image. An individual who possesses a good self-image simply works better than an individual who is slowed down by a poor one. It is important to note that a shy person may have a wonderful self-image and that the loudest braggart may have a dreadful one. The difference is that the person with a better self-image can begin a new endeavor without carrying a burden or seeing failure on the horizon. In the writing process, this can mean less writing apprehension and more content generation because of little to no fear of failure. This dramatically details exactly what writing confidence is all about. With writing confidence, writing an essay is just that - you compose a draft, improve on it and edit it - then you hand it in.
In the period of simple discussion and role playing that preceded my questionnaire distribution at the NEPTA conference, the tutors and other students alike felt that the markers of self-confidence are difficult to sense but that they can be recognized when they are missing. In much of the discussion it seemed that the audience, which was composed of a few veteran tutors, felt that "smarter " rather than "less intelligent" tutees were the ones most likely to be benefitting from extra assistance because of a lack of writing confidence, suggesting that it is possible to distinguish issues of confidence from those of academic ability.
In other words, students who have not developed adequate skills and who don't possess self-confidence don't necessarily even make it to the tutoring center. This is an alarming idea, but one that is believable. It seems that intelligent and seemingly gifted students profit from tutoring the most because tutoring can stimulate them to get excited about their topic ideas and get their creativity engaged towards actual completion of an assignment. It is an enlightening point of comparison to view how international students responded when answering my survey question
#2. They said:
An American has self-image if they have eye contact, smile, have a relaxed manner and a willingness to listen and respond appropriately. If they don't have self-image, then they are bored with a noncaring manner and are distracted and blocked.

This seems to speak to a certain kind of idea - almost what a motivational speaker would talk about. If you want to create a good first impression and sell yourself as a "a doer" and as a successful person, then you have to look and act that way. If you don't care about presenting yourself in that way in our surface-appearance-entrenched American society, then perhaps you don't care about being successful at all. Can this carry over into achieving writing success? I would suggest that in some cases it can, that the confidence to present a polished personal appearance might even be related to the confidence to present a polished essay.

In question 4: Do you feel that your own self-image is high or low, I wanted to examine tutor and student views on their own self-images. Again, I have come up with 3 basic composite responses that exemplify the typical answers:

High, but I get down on myself sometimes.
High, when I can see solutions to problems and I feel good.
Medium to High -- it depends on the situation. In English, I would say it is high, but in math it is pretty low.

In general, the responses to question number 4 spoke of a higher self-image rather than a lower one, but many times there were modifiers such as a subject or "mood" of the day, if you will, included in the answer. These judgements seemed to represent the idea of a meta-self-image. The responses indicated that underneath the writing was an awareness that "I can talk about my self-image because I can tell when I am doing well or poorly at something. There is usually a way to get that good self-image back if I am having a really bad day or a difficult time in life or with a particular discipline or situation." This sentiment is enough to indicate that these participants in the survey felt good enough to be tutors or to emerge and voice their opinions as tutees in a classroom setting. These factors alone tell you that the self-image of these students and tutors is probably above average. They are not "locked into their shells." They are able to communicate. Were there big differences in self-image within the group? Undoubtedly, but the fact remains that these respondents were not having a horrendous time with education or with interrelating. Their mental abilities for accomplishing work were not hampered in any drastic way. A more intriguing investigation would have been to see if any of these students and tutors had ever had their self- images helped along in any manner or form and to study what methods were the most effective for self-image enhancement.
For one of the most direct responses to question #4, we can examine the answer that seemed to best exemplify what the whole self-image concept is about: "My self-image is high because I am confident in who I am and with what my purpose in life is."
This person must be the Messiah or a Zen master.
In continuing to look at some more questionnaire responses, one of the more surprising sets of responses came out of question 7: Do you personally feel that a student has to have a good self-image in order to write decent essays?
This question was centered on my thesis topic and my own belief that there is some kind of relationship between self-image, self-confidence, and writing confidence. Also, I wanted to hear the respondents' perceptions about the writing process and the learning process in an educational system that mostly revolves around the discourse mode of question and answer periods in the classroom. Unlike the call-and-response collaboration of African-American folk culture or the limited one-sided banking system of education as named by Paolo Freire, the strong "in your face" questioning style of teaching writing skills in a classroom today requires that the diverse student body be able to learn as a unit in this environment.
John Trimbur, in his article entitled "Collaborative Learning and the Teaching of Writing," states that "the emphasis on individual learning and performance in traditional education taught students to compete for esteem and encouraged an anti-social use of aggression"(93). While I feel comfortable with the basic "call on the students " and "question any vagueness in their essays" mode of instruction, students do need a healthy self-image to flourish in this kind of an environment. Question #7 addresses this situation directly. I am of the opinion that this question deals with so much of the tutoring process that I include every response verbatim. The responses to question #7 [Do you feel that a student has to have a good self-image in order to write decent essays?] follow.

Positive Responses

"Yes, a student cannot perform well if she/he doesn't have faith within. This I suppose could become an obstacle or a writer's block."

"Yes."

"Yes. When you have a good self-image, you can do everything in a good manner. You will do your best."

"Yes, I do feel the student needs self-image to write decent essays. If they don't have it they will not fully ‘let go'."

"Yes, I believe to make a statement and argue it requires confidence."

"Yes, it seems that you have to have some kind of self-image in order to just get the writing done, let alone keep trying to work on your ideas."


" I guess ‘yes' because if you have low self-image, you tend to think that you do not do well whatever you do. You believe that you cannot do anything(mind control). You tend to think with negative way, so that you might give up before you try. Then your idea make you feel down. I don't think you can write decent essays with your negative idea and feeling."

"Yes. Because it is very difficult for a person who does not know the self well, to make a strong conclusion, a definite answer for an issue, a clear description of events, which comes through his insight, and so on. Believing that a good self-image comes from an adequate knowledge of self, the answer for this question is yes."

"Yes - some ego level/drive/self-image is necessary to get out of bed, dress and take on the world. a terrible self-image lacking can not only hamper a drive to write and opinionated ... it can also make the student feel like ‘no one cares anyway'."

Negative Responses

"No - deep-feeling essays can come from those with the poorest of self-images. They usually have so many internalized thoughts and feelings that, once written, are powerful and dynamic. It is the only outlet for some people."

"No - It's not how you feel about yourself, it's how you perceive everything around you. Writing essays is an acquired skill, self-image has nothing to do with it unless you're asking them to write about themselves."

"No, but a bad self-image can make it much more difficult."

"No, what matters most is what they've read, how they think, etc. Kafka, Proust, Dickinson- self- image was not important to their talent. This is true of other people.

"No - I don't think they're necessarily related. A person with a poor self-image can be a talented writer. A person with a good self-image can write badly. For some there may be a correlation."

"No. I don't think so, I have seen a lot of students with a low self-image and they write incredible essays."

"No. They just need to know how to think and compose thoughts."

"No, they just have to take time to care about what they think."

"No. Look at some of the current or even historical writers. Did Emily Dickinson have a high self-image? Writing can even be an expression or catharsis of low self-image.

"No, possibly reader response, but not usually does this affect every aspect of their studies sometimes they enjoy the course and have good self-image."

"No, in spite of self-image, some students will be driven to write -- once they get an audience or even an encouraging tutor or teacher their self-esteem suddenly explosively rises."

" No, I don't think so. It depends who the readers are.

Mixed Responses

"a little bit because a student with a good self-image tends to be a more confident writer."

"I think they need to have a certain level of confidence in themselves and in their writing. Those who don't think they write well won't put in the effort into the paper. They'll think "what's the point?"

"I think that self-image is too broad of a measure. Someone could have a low self-image about their appearance or their job and have a high self-image about their academics or social life. However, if you look at students who have a low self-image concerning academics or writing skills then they will most likely have a difficult time trying to express their feelings in an essay."

"I think that anyone can write a good essay as a far as a content is concerned. I do see self-image playing a major role in whether or not a person is willing to share the good content they have to offer. (Again, rejection seems to be a fear.)"

"Not always - if they feel secure in writing an essay but they have a low self-image then they can do fine."

"a negative self-image could help generate a creative piece of prose."

"I don't think a good self-image is necessary for decent essays even though I believe a good self- image will help a writer a lot. As long as one is aware of oneself (self-awareness), he/she is able to write decent essays. I could write a decent essay even when I had poor self-image."

" No and Yes - writing is a creative activity. Some of the best published works were done by writers who did not have a good self-image."


Questionnaire Results

When attempting to analyze the above responses, it is necessary to pay attention to the respondents' use of the term "self-image" in their answers. In this survey I wanted to use the term "self-image" in order to raise issues of writing confidence, personal self-confidence, and understanding of the motivations of the self. The student answers show the incredible range of writers' understanding of themselves in the writing process. Many times respondents would state a negative and then go on to qualify to what degree there was an excess or a lack of self-image within the confines of a certain scenario. My interpretation of these responses takes into consideration the fact that there are splendid student and professional writers with varying degrees of self-image and self-confidence who get published regularly. In fact, this idea is fully accepted throughout this thesis. My focus is more geared toward the role of self-confidence in early college students' completion of varied writing assignments. Self-confidence allows a student to navigate the writing assignment workload of the first years of college; it can help the student stay focused when "the going gets tough." Instead of concentrating on self-confidence in the writing process of a famous author, I am inclined to study the writing process of students within the framework of learning how the successful individuals get through the composing process over and over again. I see the need for fostering a minimal level of self-confidence in the student who possesses abysmally low self-confidence or writing confidence in order to facilitate the student's learning process. This should be done within a collaborative environment complete with peer editing and a debative style of classroom learning.

According to the questionnaire results, 9 people believed that a good self-image was necessary for writing decent essays and 12 felt that a good self-image was not needed in order to write decent essays; 8 stated either ambivalent responses or a mixture of yes and no answers. In talking with my questionnaire group, I found that many people felt that a good self-image helped the writing process along because of the speed that comes with not second guessing your own ideas. The perceptions of this survey group are significant because all these people have some connection with the tutoring process. There is ample reason for considering the establishing of some directives for teachers and tutors who must work with tutees who visibly display the signs of a lack of writing confidence. All the respondents felt strongly about self-image. This is an indication that there are concerns among tutors that self-image, self-confidence, and writing confidence issues exist whenever students try to write.
Students can vary in what they are confident about. The star quarterback may feel confident athletically, but not musically. A peer can help him with his trumpet music sight reading and suddenly the quarterback begins to feel that same powerful tingle before he hurls a "Hail Mary" pass, only this time he is successfully playing a difficult passage on his trumpet with the jazz band. What is beautiful about the writing tutor appointment is the possibility for this same learning boost to take place. The tutor can show some techniques that can make the tutee have self-confidence, and this in turn will help lead to writing confidence.
The following questionnaire response is interesting: "I think that self-image is too broad of a measure. Someone could have a low self-image about their appearance or their job and have a high self-image about their academics or social life. However, if you look at students who have a low self-image concerning academics or writing skills, then they will most likely have a difficult time trying to express their feelings in an essay." Here the respondent shows that there is a place where positive self-image and successful (and timely per a semester syllabus) draft completion intersect. As Bahktin writes: "Language is not a neutral medium that passes freely and easily into the private property of the speaker's intentions ... expropriating it, forcing it to submit to one's own intentions is a difficult and complicated process" (qtd. in Kimberley, Meek and Miller 128). An issue of poor self-confidence can only hinder this process further.

In the next chapters I will begin by concentrating on how teachers can make a difference in the growth of their students' self-confidence and writing confidence. Classroom assignments for enhancement of self-confidence will be explored. Finally, I will begin to examine the role that tutoring can play in the lives of writing students as they struggle towards gaining writing confidence.


Chapter 2: Classroom Strategies to Develop Writing Confidence

In The Discovery of Competence, Kutz, Groden and Zamel talk about the purposefulness of advanced student writers absorbed in their writing process in much the same light as I would characterize the budding first year writing students who do possess some self-confidence and a belief in achieving writing success:

These students, experts as a they are, are also voicing their anxiety as a they begin the task of writing a particular paper. But they know themselves as a writer, as a learner. They know what to expect next in their own idiosyncratic processes. And they can see the shape of the whole project. They can trust that they will ‘end up somewhere -- eventually.' They are lost in the process, but only temporarily, and they can trust in the now-familiar experience of being lost and eventually finding a way out. (13)

In this chapter, I shall discuss some techniques that can help students to eventually "find a way out." Every part of the writing process has pitfalls and stumbling blocks that can end the student's journey towards a completed draft. Through well-designed pedagogy and assignment selection, an instructor can positively influence the outcome of a student's attempts at writing a difficult essay. I will show how topic selection and journal use can help produce results in students to whom composition seems mostly arduous drudgery.
Young writers carry within themselves a portfolio of pictures and sounds that are made up of experiences, dreams, fears, and values. These portfolios lead to behaviors that work more or less automatically. As a student goes about the business of approaching a new writing challenge in the creation of a draft, these behavioral directions tend to influence the writing process and the resulting product. Be the writing outcome good or bad, it is important for the author to feel some kind of victory. If this feeling is positive - regardless of how outsiders view the writing - then it is clear that this author is ready to write again come the next opportunity (Kemppinen 37). For numerous reasons, certain individuals remember only the negative experiences and comments.
Sometimes less gifted writers are simply labeled basic writers. Researchers like Walter Minot and Kenneth Gamble have made multiple suggestions in the area of teaching basic writers. Minot is Professor of English at Gannon University, and Gamble is an associate professor and Chairman of Psychology at Gannon, where he teaches courses in personality theory and learning theory. In their 1991 article appearing in the Journal of Basic Writing, Minot and Gamble examine other studies concerning the writing process.

Basic writers may not differ from other students in any externally identifiable way except that their writing performance on specific writing courses falls below that of the average freshman at that college. Once identified as such, researchers and teachers alike will probably view them as a homogenous group and will pay little attention to the important differences that might exist within the group. We find similar instances of oversimplification and over generalization in areas where more sophisticated theories of behavior have been applied to writing. (118)

When college freshmen must begin to perform peer edits, interact in a decentered classroom and in an intense learning environment that more or less runs on the individual's stick- to-it-iveness - even the more mature freshmen are shocked. Basic writers are mystified; the students lacking writing confidence are immobile. They do not know what is expected of them. And they do not know how to deliver "the academic goods."

Investigating The Writing Process

When the college freshman sits down to write and nothing happens - what is to be done?
Probably very little because the student doesn't know where the instructor's office is, not to mention anything about the office hours. Perhaps it is 2AM and the student is attempting to write something in a notebook while there is a toga party going on in the background. Whatever the case may be, it is imperative that a savvy instructor make room in the beginning of the semester for several classes to focus on the writing process and on what to do about it "if yours doesn't work." David Murray ponders the writing process in a succinctly.

This process has been revered - and feared - as a a kind of magic, as a a process of invoking the muse, of hearing voices, of inherited talent. Many writers still think that the writing process should not be examined closely or even understood in case the magic disappear . . . We can study writing as it evolves in our own minds and on our own pages and as it finds its own meaning through the hands of our writer colleagues and our writing students. (Murray 3)

As Murray suggests, the writing process is still a mysterious concoction. As a writing instructor, I can say from firsthand observation that the students who performed with above average success in my English 101 Critical Reading and Writing classes in the fall and spring semesters of 1995 and 1996 had learned much about their personal writing processes in the beginning of my course. These students were able to finish work within deadlines, and their work tended to have more content (longer essays) than did those students who did not take the time to delve into just what makes their respective writing processes tick. My syllabus for Critical Reading and Writing sought to help the students to isolate for themselves the conditions and state of mind that produces compelling college level writing.

Week 1

Jan. 28 Introductions. Class policies and syllabus. Goals for the semester. Writing & critical thinking samples.

Jan. 30 Why is it important to learn to write well? Improving our writing is a lifetime commitment. Learning to read and write with a critical eye. Keeping a journal.

Week 2

Feb. 4 WP Chapter 1. The power of the writing process. Your own writing process is...? In small groups discuss how you usually achieve your best writing. Pay special attention to this question: Under what conditions does it seem easiest to come up with ideas and a first draft? Jot down the differences in the writing process between your group members. We will go over this in class today.)

Feb. 6 Thesis as a a framework for writing and life. The power of organized thinking. RA p.20, "What High School Is." RA p.33, "I Just Wanna Be Average." In-classroom work on draft for 1st paper: "The Experience that Changed My Life Forever."

I was especially fortunate in most of my sections of English 101 to have a diverse mix of students. Within a good racial, gender, and writing ability mix, the classes and I were able to see many differences between our respective writing processes. Students who displayed more of the signs of a healthy amount of self-confidence and some academic maturity tended to proudly recount their respective writing processes. They seemed to instinctively know that the writing process is important to produce descriptive language and writing that demonstrates critical thinking. In the case of ESL students that spoke up about their writing process - they didn't necessarily have a better command of English than the other ESL students who remained quiet - the vocal ESL students simply tended to have a stronger belief that their writing process mattered and might prove to be a good model to others. Was this empty boasting on their parts? Maybe, but it seems that students who achieve writing success often do want to share their ideas, they feel proud of these ideas, and in this way help others not to be stuck in the hinterlands of never being able to create a draft in time for class. I place an emphasis here on draft success.

Making The Writing Process Less Threatening

As instructors of English, we all cover various writing process theories for our students. Some of us may even choose to engage the classroom in philosophical debate over whether the "process" or "product" has the most value. Whether or not we write in our "free time" ourselves usually influences how much emphasis we place on the hallowed methodologies of getting started on a piece of writing in the correct fashion; or perhaps we choose to emphasize in front of our classroom that there is not any one technique that is the best for all writers, but that there should be a certain reverence for composition as an ongoing process.
Donald Murray has theorized about the act of teaching composition through the technique of understanding and isolating the writing process. He is quick to show that it is different for each writer, but that there is plenty we can learn from trying to map this process out.

If we stand back to look at the writing process, we see the writer following the writing through the three stages of rehearsing, drafting, and revising as the piece of work - essay, story, article, poem, research paper, play, letter, scientific report, business memorandum, novel, television script - moves toward its own meaning. These stages blend and overlap, but they are also distinct. Significant things happen within them. They require certain attitudes and skills on the writer's and the writing teacher's part. (4)

In order for students to be able to write a basic narrative essay that makes a statement about an experience they have gone through that resulted in a profound change, the student needs to pick out that singular experience, gather and arrange historical and sensory details, figure out their impact, and then recount the experience as clearly as possible. This is no easy task for even a seasoned writer. To write is to make a commitment to tell a story that matters. If a student is lacking in self-confidence, this can become a problematic undertaking. The student may feel that his or her story does not need to be told. The student may feel that the details are hard to remember. Self-confidence plays into the invention component of this topic and that is why this is a difficult process for early college writers to begin the semester with. This is the precise reason why I began my English 101 courses with the topic of essay #1 being "An Experience that Changed My Life Forever."

Learning Topic Selection

In the classroom I initiated small group interaction after the students got a chance to think about "A Life Changing Experience." In groups of three and four, the students had to "sell " their choice of topic to the other members in their group by verbally stating how this event changed their lives. I wouldn't accept a weak blanket answer like "I really made some great friends at camp that summer! " or "That canoe trip really made me think." I also forewarned the students that they should avoid writing about an embarrassingly personal topic, unless they could discuss it maturely because of their being far enough away from the time of the experience or because they had completely come to terms with it. My central focus was on their topic selection skill.
I told my class that I would be available for individual discussions concerning these topics at the Writing and Reading Center and that they should see me if they had trouble coming up with anything. I also had a collaborative tutor available to me who was free to discuss topic choices as a well. I used "An Experience that Changed My Life Forever " as a window to both help diagnose each student's invention process, as well as a gauge of their writing confidence and their belief in the importance of their life narratives. It has been my experience that if you can't write a little something about yourself, then the construction of a process analysis on a designated topic is simply out of reach.
In beginning any writing project, a solid topic is a stepping stone towards achieving writing success, especially in the case of the resistant writer -- there is no better way to have the students feeling good about the assignment than through assisting them with topic selection. In Writing Relationships, Lad Tobin discusses how a poor topic choice can hinder a student:
When I [Tobin] asked him why he was writing a comic essay on making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, he had no idea. I suggested that if the essay was meant to be satiric, he ought to think about who or what was being satirized. He seemed totally confused and asked for an example. I said that the essay could, for example, be making fun of technical writers who complicate simple processes. He looked irritated. (37)

Later Tobin is able to get the student to think about such ideas as topic relevance and about commitment to saying something substantial in an essay. Educating the reader in a mature and well-thought-out manner should be the writer's goal. In Tobin's account, the student soon connected with a more realistic topic.


‘I decided to drop the peanut butter and jelly essay,' Jack told me in his next conference. "You kept asking me what I learned from writing it and what I wanted the reader to learn and my answer was always "I don't know, probably nothing.' So I decided that if I couldn't learn anything from it, the reader can't be expected to either. So I wrote an essay about why this wasn't a good topic'. (37)

Having a student pick a solid topic that involves him or herself in some meaningful life situation helps to motivate the student to tell a story, and hopefully to tell it well. The ownership of the personal narrative can't be denied, especially in the case of writers who just can't seem to get through the writing process. If these writers are allowed to have a stake in getting through the invention process in order to begin composing ideas about something meaningful, the results are often well worth the wait.
Using Models for Writing Improvement

In a newly developed program of writing instruction Lonka et al. devote a substantial part of their student-centered pedagogy to the writer coming up with a characterization of his or her own level of writing confidence and writing style. They achieve this through having the writers take a lengthy questionnaire as they compose and draft an essay. This practice assists the writer in seeing himself or herself in the writing process. The writer must fill in specific point values from a certain range in order to give a proper answer to a question that targets the writer's nature. Some of these questions include:

How willing are you to model your writing after some other text?

Do you see writing as more a modeling process than as a regurgitation of knowledge?

Other topics the authors go through involve perception of self, procrastinatory behavior, perfectionism, and if process or product is more important to the particular writer. Of course writing is a journey of self-discovery. Studying the process of writing itself is even more an intense experiencing of self. It is for this reason that Lonka et al. decided to bring the writer right into the very core of the composing process (57).

Effective Teaching Techniques for the Classroom

Writing confidence is needed to get through the invention and revision processes in writing, especially when work must be completed within distinct time frames. In order for students to get through the lengthy process of writing college-level essays, they must feel competent with their own understanding of texts. How a text is dealt with in class becomes very important in freshman English classes. Exactly what classroom methods are being employed to bring texts alive for students? What seem to be the chief teaching techniques that are reaching students? Is lecturing proving as constructive as interactive group work? How many different kinds of learners are there in the classroom? Psychologists Kolb and Fry came up with an innovative classification of learning characteristics:
The learner, if he is to be effective, needs four different kinds of abilities - Concrete Experience abilities (CE), Reflective Observation abilities (RO), Abstract Conceptualization abilities (AC) and Active Experimentation (AE) abilities. (qtd.in Tennant 101)

Kolb and Fry go on to describe how AC and AE people are CONVERGERS, CE and RO people are DIVERGERS and finally, how AC and RO people are ASSIMILATORS. These three typical learning styles of students are quite different from one another, and a large number of students are not picking up information easily from, say, a classroom pedagogy based on lecture alone. The writing confidence of freshman students can be in jeopardy right here already if a class is a requirement and the students who are CONVERGERS (in that they need to employ active experimentation in order to learn) cannot do that in a particular lecture course.
I make this point not to advocate some extreme pedagogical practice that would coddle each student at every turn in the writing classroom. I do make this point to show that the students who are not being reached in the classroom often have poorer and poorer self-image as a result of compounding frustrations in the classroom. As educators, we need to become keenly aware of these pathways and attempt to see which of these learning directions may be more effective for a particular student who is having visible learning difficulty. We need to understand how to develop the student who is lacking, for example, in abstract conceptualization abilities. A classroom based solely on principles of active experimentation (AE) will not effectively reach the students that rely mostly on their concrete experience (CE) processing skills. In other words, it is essential that throughout the semester the instructor combine elements of interactive assignments, oral presentations, peer editing and individual composing exercises, so that learners of all styles have a chance to become involved in their own writing processes.

Journal Applications

I want to get a perception of students' self-confidence and their composing processes in the beginning of the semester. Only then do I feel that I can begin to work on the writing process, bolster their writing confidence, and discuss the revision of drafts. For making this kind of plan perform in the classroom environment, I need to support it with a project of ongoing importance. In both Critical Reading and Writing 101 and Basic English 100, I do not employ a journal as a way of getting students to write lists about daily events. I do not set up the journal assignments as exercises in creative writing; instead, there is always a strong nonfictional theme required. The assignments revolve around getting students to write about their lives and themselves with a more adult handling of particular topics. I also emphasize that the writing is to be "lacking in the mundane." The topics were not chosen to give an opportunity to write about students' favorite snacks while watching their preferred episode of South Park or Seinfeld.
One of the first journals I collected during the spring semester was entitled
" My Goals For The Upcoming Summer." Most entries were serious, and those students who didn't provide mature information and content were quickly given further instruction and a restating of the grading policy guidelines. I would say that most of the journal entry work that I received during the semester was grounded and focused towards the designated topic. Many students quickly began to talk about themselves and their academic goals in a more mature fashion. This was a joy to behold because the students would essentially be improving their content during the semester as they began to gain some more security with their writing process and with their narrational voice, which often began to sound more confident and steady. An example of this progression can be seen in some of the writings of Cynthia McCree. One of her earlier journal entries from the spring semester of 1996:

There are so many things that I would like to have accomplished by the end of this summer. It's very hard to say what I actually will be able to get done within a three month period of time. I guess my first and foremost goal would be to lose 25 pounds by September. I say this because my brother is getting married September 1st of this year and I am in the wedding. I plan on starting by cutting down on fatty foods in March. Why in March? Well, because I am a procrastinator. The second most important thing for me to get done by the end of the summer is managing my money. I am very bad at this task, and that is not a good thing. Last year I made a little over ten thousand dollars. Sadly enough, I have none of that money in my possession anymore. Where did it all go? I do know this is the problem. a very big problem indeed seeing as a though I am being thrust into the real world at a rapid pace. I will learn the value of saving money by September even if I have to take a class on it, if such a thing is offered. I also would like to find a job (not in retail) that will pay very well, but also present a challenge for me. I want a job that will keep me busy every day without the monotony. The last thing that I would like to accomplish over my summer vacation may seem vain, I want a great tan. Yes, this sounds superficial and vain, but it is like a pastime for me. My skin is very pale in general, I am Irish, what do you expect? So, for me to achieve a nice golden brown tan is a great accomplishment. I would love to spend a big chunk of my summer at the ocean. I say this not because of the fact that I want to get a tan, but because I find the ocean very relaxing. Which brings me to my final and most overlooked goal for the summer of 1996, relaxation. Without this element none of the above goals will be remotely attainable. I am the type of person that needs to relax at least twice a day. Most people squeeze in a good night sleep and call it relaxation. I just simply cannot do that. I plan to relax on my days off by going to the beach or just sitting in my backyard playing with my dog.

If I am able to accomplish all of these things between May and August it will be a miracle. I cannot conceive doing anything more than these things during my summer. Maybe by labeling it summer people think that it is a magical span of time that can last for as a long as a you want it. Sadly enough, this is not the case. I have accepted this fact and set my goals accordingly.

In my holistic comments at the end of this first journal, I said something about the focus and the detailing of her topics. Often, I would incorporate comments about the language and structure of the entry as well. The most important feedback that I would give would relate to the level of "seriousness" and "purpose" that was in the entry. Usually I would make such points to relate to what the assignment specifically called for, but also to draw attention to the voice of the writer in question. After issues of resistance and blocking were "won over" during different stages of the semester, the students' written voices seemed to grow in confidence and became more capable of putting together substantial content. Again, I hypothesize that student writing improved because of all the other essay work and text analysis that was required in the course syllabus, but I also feel that the journal venue assisted in creating more self-confidence in the freshman writer. Of course there were some students whose maturity level did not rise dramatically in their written voice during Freshman English class. In the case of Cynthia, however, I feel that there was some improvement in her narrational confidence. Here is a journal sample from much later in the semester:
Since psychology is such a broad field of study, I had to ask myself what area I would like to focus on. I find child psychology very interesting. I feel that a profession in child psychology would be a profession that I could make my mark in. Child psychology is also a very broad field of study.

There are many things that can be done with a major in child psychology. One could become a psychologist specializing in child development, or child behavior. The one aspect of child psychology that I think I would enjoy working in is adolescent behavior. My goal would be to become a clinical psychologist whose clientele would range from ages eleven to seventeen years old. In order for me to come to this conclusion, I asked myself why I would want to work with such a hard age group. I personally had a hard time dealing with my own life from the time I was eleven years old up until I turned seventeen years old. Why would I possibly want to relive my own troubles as a a teenager through working with other teenagers for the rest of my life? It seems funny to me but I do not think that is what would happen. I think that because of my experiences as a teenager, I could relate to my patients and use my knowledge of psychology and adolescent behavior to help them.

I feel that I could turn my horrible experiences as a teenager into something good. If I could just help one child through the turbulent times of being a teenager, I would feel accomplished. If I could just prevent one child from going through the depression and isolation that I felt when I was thirteen years old, then my job would be done. With such a profession involving helping people through their problems, my job would never be boring.

As Cynthia began to write more and more in the class, her self-confidence grew enough to envision herself as a future professional. She was gradually able to dig into serious topics and to write with a focus. She felt as a though she were a person capable of writing seriously about life issues. Her writing risked more in content and in self-analysis. As Cynthia wrote more actively, she also began enjoying the revision process and she even started to ask grammatical questions in class that related to her particular language constructions that her essays used. We discussed why sentence fragments are not "cool stylistic devices" on more occasions than I care to remember.

Self-Confidence and Student Maturity

Another area of interest for me has been in the observation of the self-confidence of "mature" students in comparison to the observation of the self-confidence of "immature" students. Ideas like sense of responsibility, financial independence, personal value system - all these belief systems, or the lack of these belief systems, influence a freshman student's chances of getting through the all important first semester on campus. All these qualities manifest themselves differently in each individual student. I believe that these areas can be explored by all students when they are engaged in journal writing in the classroom.
In my English 101 journal applications, I employed two distinct requirements. In formal journal entries I required the students to evaluate and to describe a particular issue or matter through employing careful descriptive writing. Some subjects needed research, and I did not accept any whimsical personal opinion essays. Topics from my Spring 1996 Enl 101 included:

Describe in detail your ideal profession and the educational plan that leads to achieving that position. No stories about winning lottery tickets will be accepted.

Discuss the implications of political correctness on American college campuses. Do you see any specific good or evil occurring at UMass Dartmouth as a a result of this new "golden rule of correct speech."

Explore some of your own personal philosophy on the matter of the balance between work and play. Do you feel our society today has correct values concerning this issue? Why or why not?

Discuss and expand on the reasons why you came to UMass Dartmouth and give your opinions on the opportunities to learn here at the university. What are the best resources available? Are there any shortcomings?


The core idea in all of these topics was to have the students begin to see that their value judgements and interaction with their academic surroundings have new meaning as they move through their freshman year as college students. Their opinions concerning their college life obviously now have relevance.
These journal writings were shared in a collaborative environment in order to create a dialogue on these subjects with the other students in the class. I want to stress that the focus of my classes was not on sharing trivialities of freshman day to day problems. I also did not spend an inordinate amount of time on these journal pieces. The basic value of looking at these kinds of writings in class was to perhaps illustrate how writing confidence could be improved upon. Students must believe in accomplishment that stems from an inner dialogue: "I can because I think I can." Knowing they would share their journal entries with a peer encouraged them to write about things they believed in.
A solid example of a journal entry that illustrates how a metadiscourse is evolving in a student's writing and in a growing confidence with himself comes from John Brown. In this entry about work and play we can see that the student is exploring some newer ideas about his responsibilities. John writes:

There are many jobs in the world that people enjoy, but work should be taken seriously at all times. Some people might take an easy job for granted and not give their all. These people will drift off and do something else that they enjoy that has nothing to do with their job. There are people in the world today that mix work with play. There are some that have jobs that are their play and then there are those that lose their job for mixing the two.

Certainly there are jobs where play can be mixed with work to make the business better. For example: I worked in my uncle's Laundromat for about five years. This job was very easy because I was the boss while I was there. To become friendly with the customers I mixed a little work with play. I joked around with them, held conversations and kept a good employee-customer relationship at the same time. This is an example of a situation where I could work and play at the same time because it would help the business out. No one wants to go to an unfriendly business.

The work place is exactly what it says, the work place. Work and play should not be mixed at the wrong times because the consequences could be severe. Then again, there are places where play mixed with work can help a business to do better.

I remember the discussion we had pertaining to the above journal topic and the seriousness that journal entries like John's brought to the class. Students who had more immature pieces were engaged by the more ardent writers. Those students who couldn't accept the relevance of such a topic as we were discussing were at least drawn into the discussion of the necessity for having a consistent philosophy towards work and play in order to help navigate the workloads of college. While, of course, maturity and writing confidence are not identical, as one develops the other often seems to develop as well.

Another example of students developing and sharing through their journals a more adult view of life and responsibility occurs in the journal of Rose Lopes:

My attitude towards friends and family has changed a great deal. I've learned that they are a real important part of my life. Without them, I would see no point in living. They're people who I can confide in when I need them. Ever since I've moved here to campus I've grown to miss them constantly. There is not one day that goes by that I don't think of them. I've noticed before how much I really love them [sic].

The way I perceive life now is so different than before college. After having one of my friends pass away, I see life on a whole different level. I try to treasure life more now, even though I still have thoughts of asking myself why am I still alive. But I know life is something you can't take advantage of because you never know when your time is up. So, you can only treasure every day while you're still alive. I used to take life for granted. I thought nothing bad could ever happen to me or to any of the people I care about until the incident that just happened. After this, I could really say it opened my eyes.

The idea that writing confidence can be acquired in part through writing about the self is not a new one. In employing journal writing as a component for Enl 101 Critical Reading and Writing, and in Enl 100 Basic English, I have found that students who become truly aware that they are "captains of their own ship" improve their skill at taking advantage of what a freshman or sophomore year at UMass Dartmouth has to offer to an opened-minded student with a good work ethic. Self-confidence can act like a beacon to a lost ship out at sea; freshman college English courses should offer at least the rudiments on "taking charge of your academic future" in their syllabi.


Assignment Orientation

I feel that the use of expressivist writing assignments helps students to begin understanding the importance of topic selection and draft completion. Certainly the skill of clear and audience-sensitive writing should be something that all our students learn before they exit the university. Nevertheless, in my experience, students can warm up to the invention process by having a definite "I" in their essays during their first freshman English class experience. This practice jump starts their confidence as early college writers, especially if their high school English programs left the students feeling abandoned and ignored in a classroom full of performance anxiety and a distant teacher. Working on peer editing techniques and audience analysis should be the next order of business for students only after they have learned to methodically move through the invention process. Creative writing applications also benefit the student by allowing the first essays to concentrate on the student author as the "I."

How is imaginative writing thought about? Barnes and Barnes (1983) and Medway (1986 and 1990) suggest that the diet of personal and imaginative writing that school students are offered is usually on a severely restricted range of topics, and probably not those the students themselves are happy with, and would choose for themselves. If this happens, what is called ‘creative writing' is neither imaginative nor creative. It just becomes routine and will certainly not encourage students, in their writing, to explore their most significant thinking. (qtd. in Kimberly, Meek and Miller 113)

What seems most powerful in this quotation is "significant thinking." When I emphasize how important it is to employ creative writing assignments, I do so because with pondering is born the possibility of wanting to share "eureka" moments with your audience. In short, when a student sees a new angle on a topic, or discovers something vital about themselves - this a moment when either the pen begins to move or the keyboard becomes alive with writing activity.

Making Assignment Choices

How, then, to work on the opinion development of a student? Must the instructor manipulate every assignment so that the tone and specifics of the assignment fall comfortably into the student's exact background and lifestyle? Absolutely not. Learning is all about stepping out of the familiar and into the new. However, is it the instructor's job or the tutor's job to generate some interest in the subject at hand so that the student can begin forming some kind of opinion about it? I would say that the responsibility lies both with the instructor and with the tutor. The student with little to no writing confidence needs to be engaged in the topic at hand. How? Well, I would say that the best method involves finding some points of relevance to the student's background, culture, creed, reading, etc. Some kind of initial connection needs to be made.
So much is written about creative assignments! How does an instructor choose between all the various kinds of "interactive classroom" tools and methodologies that are supposed to guarantee a student-centered semester? The question has a strange ring to it. Why the whole semester is student centered, isn't it? Well, yes and no.
As I have read through the 1996 and 1997 Pedagogy Handbooks, which are compiled by The Associated Writing Programs Annual Conference, I have seen a definite difference between assignments that are oriented towards the student's engagement in class, before the written work is due for the next class period for example, and the assignments that aren't especially engaging during class and might turn off a student of low self-confidence. Instead of trying to pull students out of their shells with some kind of group work, some assignments miss this kind of focus altogether. Many American media-based classroom discussion topics are completely foreign to international students or students of poorer socio-economic backgrounds who haven't been exposed to the "right " literature, political debate climate, or to any world history lessons. To take an example of an assignment that engages students and creates in them some kind of a mandatory dialogue/feedback class response, let us look at the pedagogy suggestion of Edith Cook, English Instructor from Cuesta College in California:
An exercise that works well in composition, journalism, and creative writing classes is the "personal interview," in which students act the inquiring reporter toward another classmate and in turn grant an interview to that same person. The exercise permits students to get to know fellow students, sometimes to the point of friendship, while at the same time catching on the wing, so to speak, a bit of mystery that is themselves.

Prior to the interview, in gathering material to be passed on to the interviewer, each student completes a self-inventory with signs of the zodiac. An imaginative description of one's own or a fellow student's photo and the recital of a "Cultural Shield" complete the self-inventory. For the Cultural Shield paradigm, each student writes on:
1) My favorite food, and why it is my favorite food;
2) My favorite animal, and why it is my favorite animal;
3) A person who has influenced my life, and how;
4) My ethnicity, religious beliefs, ancestry. (Alternative choice: a motto I live by.)
Students are then paired to ask questions of one another. Interviews initially build on handout "warm-up" questions, but soon move on to discoveries extracted from the self- inventories. Expressions of inquisitiveness, curiosity are encouraged. Next, students prepare first-draft "personality essays" on classmates. The follow-up interview inquires into and elicits supporting details and anecdotes. After editing and re-writing, students discuss the interview papers in groups of four. Each member shares his or her essay, hears his or her interviewee's essay, and evaluates the essays and exchanges of another interview couple. Class discussion follows, associating self-disclosure and inquiry into "the other." Commentary on the dictum, "The unexamined life is not worth living." (Associated Writing Program Pedagogy Handbook 14)

I did leave out several further paragraphs of explanation in the interest of space. Whether or not you can appreciate the interactivity of this assignment, it is evident that students have to share views on a variety of topics in order to get through to the final phase, which is the actual completion of a draft of a "personality essay." This essay is a simple enough writing project to undergo for the 100-level or 101-level English class in the beginning of a semester. It is a sensational icebreaker. My main reason to support this interactive assignment is that it immediately allows the students to see that the core of the class involves writing about issues relevant to their lives. This can create in them a feeling that the instructor wants each individual to succeed at finding something engaging to write about. This is the kind of self-confidence builder that leads to students feeling that they can participate in the classroom and even make their way through the college essay writing process which is worlds away from the high school essay.
On the other side of the coin is an assignment requiring serious thought, but one that isn't answering the needs of those students whose level of self-confidence is low. This next assignment, if used at the freshman level, could make early college writers feel that they aren't well read enough to even get through a first assignment. And if they didn't get a chance to work on presentation skills in high school, they will be frightened.
This next example is again from the AWP Pedagogy Handbook of 1996. The instructor is Alys Culhane, and this excerpt is from "Composing Ourselves as a Writers and Readers":

I start by having writers read Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, and then I ask them to respond to three questions, these being; what stylistic devices is Woolf using to make her argument? What are Woolf's arguments? And how does Woolf's style compliment her arguments?

Next, I ask writers to get into groups of their choosing and to prepare 20-minute presentations in which they consider the above questions. I encourage them to be creative, to involve their classmates in their discussion, and to include Woolf's voice in their presentation, in the second they give presentations, and in the third they talk as a class about the above questions.

After the presentations, writers do a series of invention exercises in which they write (in sequential order ) about their grandmother's and mother's composing processes while considering the following questions: What kinds of things would these women have written? Where would they do this writing? When would they write? Who would read what they have written? Next, I have students consider the above questions as they write about their own composing process ... (54).

It isn't my aim to criticize this assignment based on what it does for teaching the students about the writing process and about Virginia Woolf. My point is that if this were required of freshmen during their first week of classes, only those students with above average writing confidence would be able to complete it. My problem with this assignment is that it doesn't allow for an individually-centered composition as much as the former assignment by Edith Cook does. In order to bring students with little to no self-confidence out of their shells and to make them feel comfortable in an environment of tutoring and in-class discussion, writing assignments should begin from a personal angle, at least in the beginning of the semester. Students need to be functional in groups by mid-semester, and only then could they perhaps take on an assignment as difficult and abstract as Culhane's. In Language and Literacy by Kenneth S. Goodman, there is a similar breakdown of issues surrounding assignment creation, but most of the examples of learning strategies come from grade school.
If learners are to develop the competence to comprehend a wide range of reading materials they must then develop general reading competence to handle other kinds of language. They will also have to see purposes for themselves to make the development of such competencies necessary. Motivation which is extrinsic, such as a grades, rewards, punishments, may lead to acceptable behavior which does not in fact represent the underlying reading competencies sought. (82)

One of the techniques that can successfully be employed for helping college freshmen to break the chains of no writing confidence, lack of motivation, and poor reading skills is through helping them understand the relevance of assignments to their lives and intellectual development.

Creative Assignments to Facilitate Writing Success
In the book Writing Your Heritage: a Sequence of Thinking, Reading, and Writing Assignments by Deborah Dixon, there are numerous ideas presented to suggest that the writing assignment is often the reason for poor exploratory writing by students who normally would be capable of better work, if only there existed a better set of essay prompts. The South Coast Writing Project Director, Sheridan Blau, writes:
Dixon's observations suggested not that her students lacked thinking skills or academically acceptable ways of organizing and presenting their thoughts, but that they lacked a commitment to the topics or ideas they were dealing with, and lacked as well the kind of intimate familiarity with their subjects that we ordinarily take for granted in any writer who would presume to present work to a reader. (Dixon 8)

Dixon concentrates on discussing specific assignment scenarios that aren't effective for students who lack self-confidence. In her case, many of her students in her California classrooms are non-white. They don't have much self-confidence in the classroom environment. She emphasizes how extremely arduous it is for her Asian, Hispanic, or African American students to write about unexplored analytical terrain with which they may not be so familiar. Dixon writes:
Although they are students at a four-year university, they still are in many cases unprepared to read texts or analyze and synthesize ideas presented in their classes. Often they are the first in their families to attend college. Furthermore, many are bilingual or bidialectical, so they lack fluency in written English. For this reason, most view writing as an onerous task. My goal is to nurture a love of reading and writing through assignments that build skills and leave room for the joy that learning can and should provide. (1)

Dixon's ideas couldn't be much closer to my own. A freshman student must possess basic skills before he or she can begin to enjoy learning and a journey of self discovery. I believe that as educators and as peer tutors, we need somehow to find course content that reaches out to students, who are not quite "at first base." This is a volatile issue that often splits the academy into two camps. There are those who believe that "college isn't for everyone." Issues of what kind of societal power structure must be enforced in American society are being played out on our college campuses. The Christian proverb "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth" explores in its most basic form the issue of self-confidence and perception of self. A question that needs to be addressed, at least away from the private sector: "Is there a place for the meek in the university system?"



Chapter 3 Tutoring to Improve Writing Confidence

Central to the issue of tutoring is the idea that with proper tutoring no child, high schooler or grade schooler need stay in the ranks of "average." Of course, we all realize that there have to exist students who are average, but the idea in tutoring is that you can push your child of average intelligence and working ability a bit more into the "above average" category or achieve average results from an under-achiever. Essentially, this belief is what keeps the numbers of professional tutors and tutoring centers growing.
Tutoring has become the method for getting students at the grade school level to the highest possible skill level. Tutoring has also become a directed approach by parents endeavoring to get their gifted students into the college of their choice and towards getting the below average student into some kind of a college. It is easy to see why the work of tutors is so potent. In a classroom situation a student may be afraid to address the instructor with questions either because of a feeling of inadequacy or because the instructor is perceived to be a threatening figure.
It would seem that tutoring is viewed as a kind of cure-all by many parents and educators alike. I am not suggesting that tutoring can eradicate failure or under achievement, but clearly it is the most active way to pursue a better level of performance in a particular subject. Sylvan Learning Systems is a state-of-the-art tutoring organization that has over 40 branches in seven states. Today there are thousands of students using tutoring centers in an attempt to bump up their grades. The cases vary with the Sylvan Learning System's students.

In some cases of student performance we can see where tutoring can repair "a bad semester" or a learning gap in a particular situation. In other cases, much bigger problems may exist:

Some [students] have learning disabilities -- up to 30 percent of their students, according to Sylvan officials. Others need help through a difficult period, such as a parental divorce. And still others just missed a turn somewhere in their academic journeys, like a bright 14- year-old New York City boy who was floundering in math. His worried mother sent him to Sylvan, which concluded after an elaborate array of diagnostic tests that he had just never learned the multiplication tables. Four months and $1,600 later, she believes the problem is well on its way to solution. (Adler 50)


This is a scenario for which tutoring can clearly provide temporary remedial help and, in so doing, actually boost the student to a new and higher level of academic competency. I believe that this kind of weakness correction, akin to a vitamin B-12 shot for a rundown athlete or touring musician, can do wonders at the college freshman level. To a certain degree this can be seen in the work of tutors at UMass Dartmouth in the act of correcting freshman perceptions about plagiarism. The average freshman student tends to regard plagiarizing as not using quotation marks around words copied out of a book. To many students who make it into a university having virtually never written a research paper in English class, it is an eye-opening scene when suddenly during a tutoring appointment they learn that plagiarism can also be borrowing someone's ideas without giving the original author credit. In some way, even though an instructor may hand out a paper with guidance concerning issues of plagiarism, and then follow up with a classroom briefing, miraculously, a freshman student might still not have attained a certain clear understanding of the topic at hand.

But many issues are harder for tutors to deal with than exploring plagiarism. The unholy trinity in collaborative peer tutoring is made up of writing apprehension, fear of oral discussion, and brainstorming reluctance and these are particularly problematic for students with low amounts of confidence. It is advisable to minimize writing and discussion apprehension as quickly as possible during the students' initial experiences in the collaborative peer tutoring session. Otherwise, they will forever be locked into a situation that suppresses their abilities to contribute in written and oral form. To ignore those students who have distress over "getting started" is to doom them to failure. As an experienced collaborative peer tutor, I can say that it is a natural urge to accept the tendency that some students won't participate in the group; simply waiting for the other students in the group to pick up the slack is easy enough. Unfortunately, this is to accept a disheartening status quo that certain students of at least average intelligence and ability will probably not become engaged in the semester-long collaborative environment. The non- participating students will continue to work at a lower level of class performance, and ultimately receive a needlessly lower grade, or perhaps drop out of the class altogether. Successful growth in a collaborative peer group is only possible if the tutor/facilitator is committed to the full involvement of each tutee into the group's work dynamic. The first order of business in a collaborative group is to assess the level of writing apprehension that the students exhibit, a clear indication of low writing confidence and writing apprehension.

Decreasing Writing Apprehension

In 1979 David Bartholomae wrote about employing six-credit courses for "basic" writers that decreased students' writing anxiety. "The primary focus of the course appeared to be the improvement of student's writing apprehension. The context of the course spoke to the improvement in students' reading skills and in their ability to respond in writing to readings" (253). Basic writers are indeed a specialized group. Essentially every group of students that come into the Writing and Reading Center of UMass Dartmouth is there to work on basic skills, but it does not seem accurate to call these skills remedial. Often, what collaborative tutoring allows for is for students to acquire more confidence in their oral and written presentation of material.
Collaborative peer group tutees not only gain perspectives on academic material different from their primary instructor's, but the smaller group dynamic also allows them to test new identities out of the confines of the 20 students-or-more classroom. During my time as a collaborative tutor I was perplexed to observe certain students behaving completely differently in collaborative workshops than they normally did in their larger classes. For many students the small collaborative workshop can not only be socially empowering, but it also can measurably stir up the intellectual waters thus allowing for surprising invention work, discussion of debatable topics, and improvement in understanding the concept of audience. In fact, the concept of audience can really be explored in the small collaborative group. When doing peer editing in a collaborative group - the intensity and possibilities for instant feedback are immense.

The Efficacy of Collaborative Tutoring

Even at its most basic level, the concept of audience is new to the freshman writer:

No matter if an audience analysis is done early, in the pre-writing stage, or later, before students set out to revise, students need to have their audience clearly established so they and their teachers can determine if they have done the best job of conveying their ideas. For most students this analysis will be new and difficult. We have to guide the students in understanding and answering the questions. For early assignments, plan to spend a day discussing a sample audience in terms of the [audience profile] sheet's categories and another day monitoring the student's first ventures into audience construction. After some practice, the audience analysis will become a routine strategy. (Ryan 26)

Discussing the concept of audience in collaborative tutoring groups is an excellent method to ensure that the students know precisely what the audience and the purpose statement mean as concepts and in practice. In-depth audience analysis and precise invention techniques are just some of the areas that collaborative tutoring can assist with. In the late 1990's, tutoring, in general, has resurfaced as a tool to ensure student success (Adler 49).

Student Transformation through Tutoring

The students who seem to possess less presence and exhibit signs of low self-confidence tend to not share their ideas in the classroom as readily as they share their ideas with me, even though in age, I am not really a "safe" peer. Since I am able to also observe the same student in a classroom environment, I can say that the students possessing little self-confidence are not getting as much out of a class as are their peers.
Clearly, self-confidence is a skeleton key that can daily unlock extensive passageways or forever lock out potentially glorious life experiences one after another. In writing about tutoring, I am hoping to reveal, through real life experiences and through the results of my survey, the possible causal links between the lack of writing confidence and unrealized writing potential. I am not attempting to demonstrate that strong egos often lead to better writing or that once students develop a better sense of self, their writing immediately improves. Instead, I am attempting to show that learning can often improve when a student's self-confidence improves.

Self-confidence is needed at all grade levels. Grammar school students who learn penmanship and reading easily develop into more or less adequate high school writers because the love of reading works on their composing process. The movement of the pen on paper works on their writing. The growing confidence in understanding basic ideas of humanity and ritual begin creating an inner dialogue. And suddenly a certain level of expository or expressive writing begins to move forward more easily than before. And, of course, as this process continues to evolve and expand, the students' writing successes become more frequent. But what if there seems to be a problem with a particular student's movement from penmanship development to memorizing content in small passages of reading to writing competently on an essay examination? How can we evaluate the amount and type of writing problems that the student has?
Reading and writing based difficulties are difficult to measure and their frequency depends on how they tend to be measured or defined. Generally, the percentage of students having reading and writing difficulties is between 5% - 15% according to several international studies. The great difficulty in establishing numbers for this situation involves the lack of establishing certain standards for the levels of reading and writing dysfunction. The Swiss researcher Müller states that a lack in writing and reading skills is actually due to a learning difficulty, and one that needs to also be measured and quantified. (Salminen 14)

If there is evidence that points to a learning disability in the student, then the student should be pointed in the direction of a specialist in order to be tested. If the problem appears to be a lack of self-confidence, then some discussion with the student can help with achieving an understanding of this kind of writing difficulty. When discussing writing confidence in the college student and how the tutoring process influences writing success, I am looking first at the picture students have of themselves. The Mover 'n' Shaker vs. The Couch Potato. Jerry Seinfeld vs. George Costanza. "I'm successful at anything I do. Things always work out for me." vs. "Oh, I've been a complete failure since third grade ... ever since I....." These are two extremes, but they exemplify the mind set of an Ali making yet another impossible comeback versus a depressed Willy Loman whose future is bleak and whose selfhood has been destroyed. Self-confidence is a level of personal character; it is the physical self a student views when looking in the mirror, but it is the combination of nurture and nature that form that opinion. And a vibrant mind and thriving spirit are what a student depends on in the writing classroom and in a collaborative peer tutoring environment.
In The Writing Lab Newsletter, a publication of Purdue University, Editor Muriel Harris talks about what factors keep a freshman in school:
In layperson language, students are trying at this point in their lives to achieve balance between their inner selves and the external social structures they inhabit. Vital to this process of development of individual self-systems involves peer relationships, yet research also indicates that students need to connect early and positively with their institutions in order to set the development of their self-systems into motion. Researchers are unclear on the early stages of this process, but they do know that as a group, during the college years the majority of students who stay in college will successfully resolve identity-related issues, become more positive about their academic and social competencies, and develop a greater sense of self-worth and value. (4)

Ms. Harris talks about a number of issues in her editorial piece, but I feel that her strongest point without a doubt is that to excel and remain in school is a result of several processes beginning and continuing to operate in concert. It is easy to see how a student with a small amount of self-confidence is unable to fully take advantage of the fantastic learning experiences that are offered in a freshman year college environment.


The Efficacy of Collaborative Groups

During the spring semester of 1998, I had the chance to be a collaborative tutor for Professors Jim Morgan and Sharon Gross-Nash of UMass Dartmouth. On a daily basis I had the opportunity to witness the invention process and the careful application process of students of both these Critical Reading and Writing 101 classes. It was an enlightening experience to say the least, one that taught me a lot about writing confidence.
Perhaps the most heated discussions over the required purpose statement and audience statements to be included on the cover sheet of each essay occurred with Marsha Cabral, truly one of the brightest and most mature freshman I have ever had the chance of tutoring. Her wildly curly hair was almost as temperamental as her weekly concerns about possibly changing her major, yet again. She took her work seriously and would often be frustrated when she did not receive maximum points for her essays, although she carefully drafted and rewrote them. One of the clearest moments of tutee enlightenment occurring in a collaborative group during that semester took place when we had just concluded a session of looking over her third draft of a descriptive essay on the simple joy that is painting. Present in the group were Sinak, Michael, Loc, and Marcie.
This was a challenging collaborative group because it consisted of three Cambodians and an American. Marcie tended to ask many questions and set some kind of a conversational pace in the group. Often, I would make copies of these four student's essays and after reading each we would begin to analyze what worked and what didn't. The group spoke up the most when we were looking at as-of-yet ungraded essays. It was during these occasions that the most opinionated discussion and goal-setting took place. After reading Marcie's piece about her favorite hobby, painting, I began to ask some questions "from the top," which really meant: "Did the writer reach her core audience from the beginning and actually have the audience understand the exact purpose of the essay?"
No response.
"Michael," I asked quietly, "Do you think that her readers will buy the fact that painting is easy and that anyone can learn to do it?"
"Umm, I think so. She has some great details showing that."
"OK," I spoke with the same inflection, "Do you see any inconsistencies in her actual sentences?"
"Not really."
"Sinak and Michael ... Do you think that you could just start painting after reading this?"
Sinak's reply was quick. "If you wanted to..."
After some line by line reading, Loc discovered the little glitch that actually opened up an even bigger window of error. In her first sentences, Marcie had discussed how complex Van Gogh's painting style had been and how few painters could ever equal that kind of simple detail and variation of color. Essentially, she had frightened the "any classmates who want to begin painting as a hobby" audience away within the first sentences. After this eureka moment, the entire group's purpose statements and audience statements tended to be a bit tighter.
What does this have to do with self-confidence? Essentially, after poor grades came back from certain essays, we were able to define some of the problem areas and peer edit live. By this, I mean that individuals were able to make suggestions virtually right away, as they read through a fellow student's essay. Before, the students had to really dig for anything to say while reading through the essays silently as they searched for "errors." In these now heated oral editing sessions, egos took baby bruisings that tended to create remembered lessons about essay composition and drafting. The quieter students, who never spoke in class would have to speak up in the group and as was the case with Loc, who rarely spoke in class (I know this because I often sat in on the class); in our weekly sessions, he actually began to analyze his own work and make suggestions to others. The collaborative group allowed for a smaller discourse community, not to scare off the student, but to engage him. His growing confidence in the group payed off in writing confidence as he began to craft better purpose and audience statements.

Directions in Collaborative Peer Tutoring

Collaborative peer tutoring seems to be the most efficient method for bringing students out of their shells and situating them closer to the ideals of interactive learning. Sometimes the large university landscape tends to separate the student from automatic access to new knowledge.
Knowledge of academic subject matter, sharpened decision making skills, and freedom from performance anxiety are what we attempt to teach our students. As instructors we sometimes forget to address this last issue. Often, performance anxiety has been indoctrinated into the writing student through pedagogy that doesn't use a holistic approach to evaluating student composition. As a result, over emphasis on a variety of surface features can forever discourage a natural movement towards creativity. Researchers Clark and Ivanic were able to uncover the simple truth that writing confidence is often lowered in students when the roles of grammar and punctuation are overemphasized during the invention stage of composing.


Teachers are put in the insidious position of having to prioritize spelling when their understanding of literacy development tells them that other things are more important. As a result many children learn little about writing other than that they are ‘no good at it', and are alienated from it long before they are old enough to use it for any form of social action. (Clark and Ivanic 201)

Collaborative peer tutoring can help us get away from that model.

Tutor Instruction

At the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Writing and Reading Center, peer tutoring is taught to new tutors through a variety of techniques, but from within a single core philosophy. This central philosophy is that the students create their own work with the tutor acting as an interlocutor or as an idea prompter. This technique creates work that is mostly the students' with less and less being attributable to the tutor. This formula is remarkable, and, in fact, creates a certain kind of professional working relationship between tutor and tutee. Encapsulated within this method of tutor development is the idea that both parties have certain jobs to do. The tutor is required to be prepared for the session with proper materials and with an above average knowledge of the subject, and the tutee is directed to come to the session with a full understanding of the assignment parameters, the course syllabus and textbook, and with the desire to do interactive work. For this style of tutoring work there needs to be strong communication between tutor and tutee.

Tutoring Methodology

In my tutoring experiences at the UMass Writing and Reading Center, I have never encountered a situation where the student and I were at a complete impasse. Usually with a discussion as to why an assignment or a process is difficult and with a brief period of unpretentious rapport building, it is possible to begin working together with a student if there are no other issues in the way. While conducting the tutoring session, I like to make sure that the student is aware of the deadline of an assignment, that he or she has the textbook or other assignment source book and a copy of the syllabus, and finally an idea concerning the process and purpose of the requested paper or report. After these initial stages, I have found that if there are any reoccurring roadblocks that are linked to low self-confidence that they will occur again and again until they are addressed. For the sake of using an actual concrete example of a topic, I will use the work conducted during an actual tutoring session with John Smith.
John exhibited a mixture of self-confidence behaviors. He would strain to say something, and then he suddenly would become negative and simply state "This topic sucks." Clearly, he was unsure enough about his views to discuss them, even within the confines of a small collaborative group. He had a bad attitude. He did not trust himself to make a point; instead he would retract a statement and make a joke about what he wanted to share with the group. In all of our time working together, John had difficulty in coming up with workable drafts. Often he would start writing an essay and then not finish it, having lost faith in the process and in his own abilities.
During a certain collaborative group session, John had to write a process analysis essay on a topic of his choice or on one of the suggested topics in Patterns of Reflection. This reader contained provocative essays and reading response exercises, and it was used as an English 101 reader and essay assignment prompt book by Professor Jim Morgan during the Spring 1998 semester. John had to nail down a topic, and he seemed unable to do so. Some of the areas of discussion that I might move towards in order to assist students who suffer from situations similar to John's include the following:
If you could write about anything at all about the topic -- what would you choose to explore?
Why do you feel that this topic is uninteresting to you?

Could you write a little bit about each topic and then pick one based on your best answer?
Since this topic seems weak to you - criticize the assignment. How would you set up this writing assignment?

Usually John would get started through arguing with other students in the collaborative group. This would satisfy me as well as the assignment criterion, which was usually flexible. The collaborative group would serve as a foil for John to work off of. John's views were polemics, and a collaborative tutoring group can always feed off of polemics. There were, of course, instances when the combativeness of John's comments would lead to empty argumentation and negativism.
Collaborative groups are easy psychological landscapes for sizing up the work habits and the social interaction of early college writers. Undoubtedly what is best about tutoring in collaborative groups is that the tutor can make a diagnosis of possible learning and writing confidence issues, and, of course, the tutor can then attempt to work on some of these areas and help the students both individually (after a group meeting) and as a "performing troupe." Instructors who play close attention to the work covered in collaborative groups by the tutors will also benefit from this unique learning dynamic.

Collaborative Peer Tutoring and Improvements in Writing Confidence

It is easy to see in working as a tutor/counselor/facilitator for a small group of students from a particular class section of English 101, that communicational and writing obstacles come to the surface quickly when students can relate to one another without the pressure of a large classroom. Writing apprehension or the inability to put together a draft is noticed quickly by a tutor, and the problem is soon being worked on. The case is not the same for a class instructor. Indeed, student work may be inadequate, but the diagnosis as to what causes this inadequacy is often a tale of hit or miss - the instructor can ask a few questions of the student in class, while writing a few more comments at the end of a poor draft. If an instructor could communicate with a collaborative group tutor, or apply some kind of collaborative group work outside the classroom and give credit for this interaction, then it would frequently result in a clearer diagnosis of self-confidence issues in the writing of each student.
Students who are overwhelmed with college life and college work are not a new phenomenon, and the work of campus-based tutoring centers is invaluable. However, a portion of the students seen at tutoring centers who suffer from a lack of writing confidence cannot be helped using the standard "question asking " method of collaborative group tutoring. Hoping that the student with little self-confidence and barely adequate essay writing skills will be able to come up with a draft in time for class with minimal input from the tutor is like expecting a student to pass a driver certification road test with the student having been out practicing actual driving maybe only once or twice. The basics have been looked into, but they are not solid enough skills to guarantee passing a licensing examination. Peer tutors need to be taught specific techniques in order to assist the students who suffer from a lack of writing confidence. Tutoring centers need to optimize collaborative group tutoring, but they also need to provide individual attention whenever necessary. Only through focused individual peer tutoring can a student be directed into putting together an essay from start to finish and then be able to learn to reproduce that process on his or her own.

The Power of Individualized Tutoring

In this chapter, I am not advocating the allocation of precious resources to students who just can't make the grade because of low IQ, extreme disability, an unflinchingly resistant attitude, or other impenetrable road blocks. I am suggesting that the typical freshman retention rate of 50% could be improved by a freshman curriculum that guides the student more and also provides for those students who somehow made it into the university (and have paid their first tuition bills) and now find themselves treading water academically. There should certainly be room to help these students in the first year college English curriculum. Individual tutoring is an invaluable service to the early college writer.
The student who needs individual help because he or she possesses little to no self- confidence and cannot argue or discuss effectively in person is not a rare sight at the Writing Center of UMass Dartmouth. Collaborative peer tutoring often assists the more open student, and maybe even the slightly shy student, to become familiar with the concepts of audience, rhetorical effectiveness and idea development. The student suffering from writing confidence is often unable to absorb much information from a collaborative group because he or she is afraid to participate with concepts and contributions to the group for fear of making a mistake or just plain saying something that is "uncool."
While it is certainly true that not every one of us is born to be a dynamic communicator and essayist, I do feel that if reading and writing skills were taught effectively in the correct fashion in high school, then many students could at least master the basics. They should know how to read and to somehow find some joy in it. In France, it is a subject of national pride that people are well read and spend time reading. In the United States, we readily accept that many people never master a certain reading level. I feel that the average student could be brought up to speed with his or her critical reading and writing skills with the proper freshman pedagogical methods in the English class, especially if they start with a 100- level course and attend individual tutoring regularly.
The students with little writing confidence and a less than college-level reading ability cannot suddenly jump into gear. They need personalized attention. At the Writing Center of UMass Dartmouth, I often began a tutoring session with a brief intake discussion, and from there I established some directives for the fifty minute appointment. In addition to mapping out some of the work that would be discussed, we often went over other parameters, such as when an essay was due, if there would be a rewrite option, and what opinions the student might have about the class, the professor, and his or her involvement with the material.
Those freshmen students who have underdeveloped reading and writing skills can be prepped in these disciplines enough to at least pass some otherwise impossible course loads only after their self-confidence level is increased. These problem students are "problems" not because they party or disrupt class or because they don't do the reading. They are "problems" because they can't seem to get through all the college-level work at the same clip as a everyone else; they need to improve their reading comprehension, their note taking, their self-expression, and their writing confidence. They need to find some way to get through an already daunting itinerary within the confines of a tight semester. It is my feeling that often these students have a wonderful work ethic. Unfortunately, they lack certain other university survival skills.
I cannot offer explanations for these syndromes or offer advice on solid cures that will work for everyone. I can, however, provide information on an existing condition - that of the student who has distress with the learning process. This student is not necessarily stupid or lazy. This student often just needs more help. Somehow, this young mind needs to be given the assistance to negotiate a path through academia. Proper individualized tutoring is a start.
Two Case Studies: Ellen and Matthew

I would like to begin exploring some of my observations of Ellen Lourdan, a tutee that I worked with for the fall semester of 1997 and the spring semester of 1998. Also, from this same time period, I would like to recount some of my sessions with Matthew Sweet. In these freshman students, I witnessed the opposite behavioral ends of writing success issues; I employed individualized tutoring in an attempt to help both of these students. In both these cases self- confidence got in the way of getting through English 101 and a number of other courses that involved generating essays. The absence of writing confidence simply "cramped their style" almost irrevocably.
As an instructor I enjoyed seeing the prevalence of writing across the curriculum at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Sadly, in the case of these two students, writing across the curriculum was yet another nightmare in their fretful freshman experiences.

Ellen Lourdan

In Ellen's case, a concrete problem that plagued her class work was her general lack of opinion because she was overwhelmed by a wide range of topics in a number of subjects. When she had to write book reviews for her sociology class either agreeing or disagreeing with authors on at least five different short books the class required, she nervously would say: "I don't know ... it seemed like the author had some good and bad points. I'm not really sure." Ellen consistently didn't trust herself enough to attack or defend these books, and because of this she was unable to write solid essay responses on the required readings for her class. Her particular situation showed a complete lack at self-confidence.
Can I analyze Ellen Lourdan's draft completion problem as solely attributable to her writing confidence being low? The answer is no. She did have some reading difficulty as well, and this negatively influenced her belief in her ability to write. Part of the self-confidence deficit in many of the students I worked with involved poor reading skills. Many of the shy students would not answer my questioning. These same quiet students might have been suffering from a lack of self-confidence. In this kind of situation their instructor was not helping them to learn; these students were sitting in class without ever becoming engaged with the material. After class they went home in order to be engaged by the material and were unable to react to it yet again. Why, because their low level of self-confidence did not allow them to respond to a reading, let alone write about a passage of text.

Of course students who have barely operational composing processes are often students who have both reading problems and little to no writing confidence. It is as though not only do these students have a fear of reacting to what they read, but also they have anxiety about the actual content of what they read. There is an inability to trust what the text has stated. It would seem that the reading mechanism in their minds is flawed. If this mechanism is telling them that they are inferior, a reflection of low self-confidence, this data will be processed and turn failure into an objective experience ( Maltz 25). Students who don't get the reading right away berate themselves and soon they believe they are unable to read.
It is frustrating to ponder whether lack of self-confidence caused Ellen Lourdan's problems, or whether her inability to read and write competently resulted in weaker self- confidence. I am confident that a tutor's concentration on improving student self-confidence, and on leading tutees through the composing and draft completion process, will result in improved writing. In any event, Ellen's English, sociology, and political science classes required specific argumentative responses towards a book or an essay - without a normal amount of self- confidence or writing confidence, she didn't have a prayer of passing any of these courses. Eventually, with individualized tutoring, she was able to form more concrete opinions. After even more tutoring - she successfully put these opinions into solid paragraphs.
In examining students different from Ellen in that they have self-confidence, there seems to be some kind of direction and goal in the minds of students possessing writing confidence when they are attending college. They feel that their ideas have relevance and that their future plans have some defined direction. Because of this faith in the future, somehow these students are able to survive from semester to semester. It is as if their minds perceive that their ideas have substance. These powerful and confident students can seek out tutoring and other study aides, and they can manage rewrites without too many strange blocking issues or writing anxieties.

Matthew Sweet

In Matthew Sweet's case, the student behaved differently from Ellen Lourdan, though the root of the problem also involved the lack of writing confidence. Matthew Sweet's lack of self- confidence was guarded in a cynicism and a style of quick negative judgements that exceeded healthy levels even for a freshman. His situation was unlike John Smith's in Chapter 2 because he did not enjoy engaging the tutor or the collaborative group even in some small fashion. He wouldn't argue or speak much at all. So as to not leave himself open for corrections, Matthew would seldomly volunteer in-depth viewpoints in front of the class or in the collaborative group. Often he would paint the assignment in question as "lame" or "a waste of time." His response was always short and critical.
Yes, Matthew had resistance, but this resistance clearly could be seen coming out of a sense of being unsure of himself or his opinions. His SAT scores indicated above average levels of intellectual functioning - his attitude toward his invention work and composing process fluctuated from creative joy to questioning whether or not he should do the work. Much of the work seemed purposeless to him. Also, he did not interact with the rest of the class in any one assumed role; he didn't feel secure with his socializing skills. He wanted more freedom to pick essay topics, yet when he was given this freedom, he couldn't come up with a draft on the assigned date. He also had much anxiety over generating content, though he had effective witticisms and surprisingly focused observations in the few scribbles that he would produce on occasion. Eventually, through our tutoring sessions, Matthew began to make simple goals and to believe that he could complete these goals. His two affirmations became: "this writing assignment is sort of interesting" and "I can get a draft together if I really want to."
In both these cases of working with students who were poor both in self-confidence and in writing confidence, there were not any racial, socioeconomic or political issues playing out in our tutoring sessions. My basic technique in my tutoring was simply to ask questions in a non- confrontational manner in order to help the students generate ideas. The communication appeared to be free to go in any direction, yet both Ellen and Matthew tended to clam up. Confidence issues can effect the tutoring, and whether or not the act of tutoring can always help in the worst cases of confidence problems remains a question.
What can help in tutoring students who need a boost is simply to allow students to see that their opinions or ideas about a text have some accuracy and relevance. Using simpler materials than those that are often employed in class in the beginning of a tutoring regimen could allow students to feel more confident while allowing them to work up to the classroom level. An effective strategy for moving students with confidence problems towards smaller yet attainable goals in reading and writing comprehension begins with selecting understandable textbook readings. In the cases of Ellen and Matthew, I often observed that using an outside newspaper article or viewing an assignment-related Website produced some excitement and zest as they started in on their opinion development. These students couldn't just fall into doing an assignment. They needed some extra help and input in generating their thinking and their composing processes.

Confidence as a Constant Variable in the Classroom

Throughout all my time spent studying the implications of what can happen if self-confidence and writing are understood as having a connection, no scenario has engaged me more than having an instructor seeing his or her students acting like more competent writers in smaller groups. In the classroom it is possible to do group work, obviously. Having 24 students split up into 3-person units to peer edit or to map out an assignment is not necessarily a terrible idea. It is, however, not like a peer tutoring environment because:

Classroom-based established behaviors remain in front of a large group.

There is no truly safe facilitator/peer group leader present.

More background information can be shared by the tutor and the tutees within a small group than can be shared in the larger classroom.

Often one-on-one additional tutor support is not available.

The classroom environment simply cannot address all the needs of the students suffering from confidence issues. My solution to this problem of classroom size is simply to recommend to all writing instructors of freshman and sophomore level college students that they consider promoting student attendance at the school writing center. Also, why not allow for the creation of a few collaborative groups from within the class itself, where the students can receive credit for going to see a tutor or groups of tutors as they meet with their collaborative groups and the facilitators of these groups? While many students could benefit, this should be mandatory for those students showing the signs of self-confidence problems.

In Conclusion

Surely, there is room in freshman orientation programs to discuss self-confidence and writing confidence. Preferably, there could be a connection established in orientation programs about the challenges facing the freshman in English 101 and on how to get help. Would it not be worthwhile to discuss the interactive classroom setting and the necessity for firm decision making when choosing a writing topic?
There is so much to be said for the promotion of self-confidence in the classroom. Self- confidence protects the student from self-inflicted hardships and can help the student negotiate academic life. Allow writing confidence to grow by using positive motivational techniques during the drafting stages. A healthy amount of self-confidence can obviously be a most effective tool for ensuring writing success because the individual student does not fear corrections of mechanics, criticisms of ideas, and the lengthy revision process. A student with self-confidence is free to learn from criticism. The criticism and revision in the writing process can now be looked at as a naturally helpful process and not as a personal attack against character. A student possessing self-confidence can view constructive criticism as a chance to grow.
Levels of Writing Criticism

Some overly disciplinarian educators feel that anything less than exemplary student writing, or even penmanship, are all signs of a lack of commitment to excellence. This failure in commitment to achieve is seen, then, as the symptom and as the disease itself (a lack of self- confidence). Disciplinarian educators would contend that only a student's extreme drive in the classroom towards excellence is a worthy sign of an individual who deserves to possess self- confidence. In the book Eläköön Erilaisuus [Long Live Diversity] Barbara Prashnig shows us several examples of students who blossomed later in life -- all of them had learning and/or writing difficulty in the classroom.

Albert Einstein lived in his daydreams. He even received failing grades in grade school mathematics ... Thomas Alva Edison was often hit in school because he asked so many questions that his teachers felt he was the bad egg ... Emile Zola often received failing grades in her final literature tests ...Woodrow Wilson didn't learn to read until he was eleven years old. All these people have one thing in common, they all possessed different learning styles and the instructor was able to set standards, but the students were unable to learn in the classroom. (9)

Standards in the classroom are one thing, and setting up various goals for students to reach is yet another. Without understanding the learning styles of individual students, however, establishing yet harsher criticism as a motivator for student improvement is misguided at best. For the student who is working on his or her self-confidence in college and on writing consistency, an instructor's clinging to an inflexible outlook at emerging prose creates anxiety.
The basics of English instruction, the understanding of style, the exploration of what constitutes good technical writing, and the need for clarity in rhetorical theory have all shown me the need for an understandable pedagogy in the university-level writing classroom. Clear written communication is the goal of university level writing courses; the instructor's job should be to get the students to understand that goal and to lessen writing apprehension and allow for student improvement. Without the sense of a strong identity, there is no burning need for a student to communicate with anyone or to create a synthesis of ideas in a collaborative learning environment. If we as instructors use a decentered classroom, then we had better have students who have opinions, a desire for knowledge, and the ability to engage in discussion. It is imperative that we actually bolster the inner voices of students whenever the situation allows for this.

Recognizing a Lack in Self-Confidence and in Writing Confidence

Finally, recognizing confidence problems is a skill that every instructor should take the time to develop. Just as a diagnostic is employed to aid in determining the writing level of students in a given classroom, so too should careful observation in the early semester weeks be used as a method for assessing the self-confidence of particular students.
Educational researchers Kalliopuska, Heikuriainen and Larsio have observed that
Low self-confidence can show itself through missing power and in a weakened ability to perform. A student with little self-confidence is overly cautious and this can manifest itself in an overly directed focus at following the lead of others. He or she can't form personal opinions. Poor self- image also reveals itself in feelings of inferiority, insignificance and ineffectiveness. In front of new tasks the individual feels that they cannot be accomplished, or the individual may perceive that he or she is incapable and therefore sets only minimal goals if any. (23)

Students with confidence problems need to set goals for themselves that will ultimately help their learning processes. Here the instructor can nudge the students into shooting for more than they are used to going for. In this situation, the experienced instructor is again shown a situation in which his or her experience can help the student plan the work, accomplish the work, and feel good about the process.
There exists a definite relationship between students who have had an arduous time in their high school classes (especially classes requiring a lot of written and oral work) and a poor performance in freshman year academics. These are the students who usually fall into the losing half of the retention statistic in universities and colleges across the country.

Confidence Development in the Academy

There is a profound need throughout society to understand the role of self-confidence; the academy should be no exception. In a decentered interactive classroom, there can be little meaningful exchange taking place unless students and instructors alike have a healthy yearning to express their ideas. With larger classrooms, a strong and meaningful dialogue between instructor and student is absolutely necessary. In our universities there is a growing demand for 101- type service courses. Even as some courses are being simplified, the typical freshmen attending them tend to have immense difficulties with basic writing assignments. The university's student support services should be able to provide the tools of sustenance necessary for helping students to become members of an often daunting freshman year discourse community. Tutoring centers can help greatly in this process by having student tutors stress that tutoring centers are about community and "extra help and free coffee" as opposed to "the remedial room." Instructors should advocate training programs as places where students who are having difficulty working in a normal classroom situations can find support.

Bolstering Self-Confidence through the Gradeless Approach to Feedback

There are many methods for attacking the problem of waning confidence levels and frustration within the writing process. In the gradeless system of Hampshire College, there is an emphasis on building up the student. Criticism and feedback are holistic and given without a series of numbers and letters. One of the school's top ten goals is to provide for student motivating activities. Their goal is to create an advanced sense of self: "Students' sense of themselves as capable people is enhanced by successful projects. Students said, ‘Before I did this I didn't know that I could do such work. Now I know I can do it, and I can go farther if I want to ' "("Hampshire" 5). Isn't this the predominant goal of education everywhere? Or shouldn't it be?
I wish to point out that I do not promote a revamping of all college curriculum to improve students' sense of self. Instead, I choose to dwell on the power of even a little writing confidence that pulls a student through grade school, high school, and finally college, where the 50% retention of freshman students is the national average for medium-sized state universities. This statistic surely creates a challenge for all of us as educators and as tutors to try harder or "smarter." A good place to start a program of improvement is within the framework of assignment creation and assessment.
Self-confidence issues should always be kept freshly in the minds of writing instructors as they try to achieve a proper classroom dynamic, which in turn facilitates learning both during class, and in the dorms or library as students work on their writing assignments. Tutoring services can especially help young writers who have various writing issues. Only after these students receive help can we as instructors feel that the greater part of the writing classroom is forging ahead.
I am reminded of the case of a student, Sandy DeMorais, to whom I owe considerable gratitude for her prowess in discussion leading during the spring semester of 1997. In my English 101 class that semester, there were an inordinate number of shy students who were unable to really participate in a discussion. Not only did Sandy help many writers "think harder" because of her astute classroom comments, she also became a tutor specializing in writing for the UMass Writing and Reading Center. I witnessed dozens of sessions in which students with poor self- confidence would not be able to come up with any content, nor develop a thesis. With Sandy's leading questions, however, many things became possible. An interlocutor's talent was clearly hers. Students began to come up with ideas for writing as Sandy helped them to find more hardiness of character by supporting their sketchy ideas while suggesting gentle refinement. The students definitely began to have more confidence in themselves, and this showed in their essay generation. Had the tutoring not been available, I am sure that many students would have ended up with little or no improvement in their confidence and in their writing.
What might a general prescription be for the promotion of writing success? The following should allow for some preventative and curative measures:
Attempt to establish early in the semester which students seem to be having reading difficulty and/or assignment completion problems. Address the issue with the students by having them attend some tutoring sessions at the institutional writing center. With the tutor create some elementary level preparatory work to measure basic cognition and reading comprehension. If the students are doing well with basic materials, move them into working with the actual classroom assignments.

If the student is not doing well with basic materials diagnose the problem further. Is there some form of reading impediment in question? Is there a learning disability? This is a delicate area where great sensitivity is needed in order to proceed further. If a specialist might be called in to approach the student outside of the tutoring center, then at this stage this would be recommended. Without proper reading comprehension, the student will be unlikely to make it through the semester.

If the student does not have a learning disability or some significant physiological problem, then it is possible to begin working on the writing confidence issue. Have the writing center tutor take extra time getting the student with low self-confidence to respond to the readings. These readings may be the same as a those used in class. The emphasis should be on having the student formulate an opinion and on finding specific passages with which to back that opinion up.

Have the tutor also initiate an environment suitable for peer editing. As a student's confidence improves, so too should his or her responsiveness to analyzing the work of other students in the collaborative group. This collaborative group may be one from class or an artificially constructed one to be used for peer editing and put together by the tutor from the writing center. Since peer editing is often used in the writing classroom, all students should have opinions about style and content. Otherwise, the classroom workshop dynamic will stagnate.

Offer plenty of support when giving criticism and feedback to students. As instructors, we know how demanding our academic standards can be to the first semester freshman. Of course students need a wake up call to the demands of university study. Unfortunately, many students who have some hidden talent or ability may never get a chance to find these strengths if their confidence is beaten down even further with only negative criticism. It is an undertaking to find something to praise at the elementary composition level, yet this can help a student to successfully do battle with a tumultuous semester and to come out at the end of it as a victor.

Self-confidence is a constantly changing umbilical cord to our creativity. If the cord is intact, we can enjoy nourishment and clear air to breathe. If the cord is weak and allowed to weaken further, then future creation of original and vital work seems but a remote possibility.
With self-confidence students can reach writing confidence, and they can begin to enjoy both the process and the final product of their labors.


Note: The names of all students have been changed to protect their identities.



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