April Heaney

I’ll start with a common story for college instructors.  Mid-semester passed a few weeks ago, and everyone is feeling the first signs of slump as the days grow shorter. You are beginning to worry (really worry!) about a few students. One of them started the semester as an eager, star-performer but dropped away in the past couple weeks. Another has been coming to class regularly but has turned in almost no work, in spite of several reminders. A third student has had spotty attendance all semester but now is a ghost. Sadly, by the final week of class, one of these students has left campus. In a year, you discover the other two are also no longer enrolled. You are curious and troubled by their decision to leave…but not hopeful that these students will decide to return to school.

Not surprisingly, students leave college in the first year for hundreds of reasons. Some of the most common include financial problems, mental or physical health struggles, family crises, and academic challenges.

For continuing generation students–students whose parent(s) have Bachelors Degrees or higher–a bumpy road to college graduation is often just that—a bumpy road. Leaving college is no picnic, to be sure, but the path back to college is also much more imaginable. To first-generation and underprivileged students, leaving college can feel more like the unfortunate but final ending to a once hopeful story. These students often believe that their departure is evidence that their pervasive fear (ie. I can’t make it in college) is now proven beyond repair.

The deep narrative in our culture about “successful college students” tells us that success looks like four or five years of straight sailing through a major ending in graduation (and a good job). In spite of overwhelming evidence that this story doesn’t hold for many students, we still cling to it in higher education. Our inability to reify any other narratives for our incoming students is harmful in many ways. One of those harms is the complete absence of positive alternate paths in students’ minds. I’ve seen students who are struggling in their first semester continue to dig a deeper hole of poor grades and attendance in their second (and then third) semesters. In the end, they are forced to leave college with a GPA that harms their ability to return, even down the road when they are in better mental and emotional shape to succeed. 

This downward path to departure is connected to our single story of college success. When students feel they are slipping, they forge on based on two choices they believe in: keep going or fail at college. To earn poor grades is scary; to depart college even more so—and tied to incredible shame. Institutions do little to help this problem. We fail to build in systematic interventions with struggling students, contact points that can help students see alternate paths to ultimate success in college. We play into the mindset that departure is equated with failing…even when we do communicate to students that leaving is the best option. Financial aid system that does not permit part-time status to keep financial aid. Lastly, we do not widely champion the benefits of a gap-year, especially for students who need that time to understand why they are seeking a college degree.

How Can Teachers Help?

As key contacts for first-year students, teachers have a role to play in altering this harmful mindset. When we see that a student is struggling during a semester, we can change the story we tell them in subtle but meaningful ways. Teachers do need to communicate at the moment when passing the class is impossible—letting students know that withdrawing may be a good choice.

In addition, letting students know that we believe in their potential to succeed in the class (and college) is a huge help to students’ confidence and motivation to succeed. When it seems like a student is struggling across the board in classes, we need to help connect them to a Dean of Students’ contact to review all of their options—not just withdrawing from class, but perhaps withdrawing from school to make it easier to return in the future.

It is important for students to understand that their inability to succeed in college at the present time (e.g. poor attendance, not completing homework, not earning high marks) does not mean they have no hope for the future. A teacher who communicates “I like you/I believe in your potential in spite of your performance this semester/I am in your corner no matter your circumstance at this moment” is a huge encouragement in students’ minds for the future.

On a smaller scale, we can help students understand and act on important dates for course and all-school withdrawal by noting these dates in syllabi and announcing them in class.

Rusin (2018) says, “It’s critical to start thinking of learners who take non-traditional paths to achieving their educational goals as stopouts rather than dropouts. Not only is the term more accurate, but it also has a more positive connotation that influences students, staff and faculty alike.” 

In addition to shifting our narrative to struggling students (without changing our academic expectations), we can help bring in stories of successful non-traditional paths to graduating from college. For example, we can tell the stories of students—or colleagues—who needed more time to earn their degree. Normalize the idea of stopping out. A study by Educational Advisory Board (EAB) tracked students at different higher education institution types to see how many returned to college. Hubbard (2020) states, “we were surprised to see that more than half of all students who stopped out would return within a year.” We should know and support this trend.

Last Note: I understand (and support!) the irritation some students feel at the constant pressure to equate college degree with successful life/career. There are many, many examples of success stories that are not tied to college degrees. My push in these suggestions is to be more realistic about how to support students who genuinely want a college degree but will struggle to achieve it within a set timeline. In addition, social mobility in the U.S. is tied to college education in ways that further terrible inequities in race and class. The charts below help illustrate why college education matters to this scenario. These outcomes must change. 

April Heaney

As a teacher and director in higher education, it is no surprise to me that college students struggle terrifically with the ability to self-advocate after they arrive on a college campus. As a parent of three teen kids…well, I admit with due shame that I am part of the reason the problem exists in the first place.

According to Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University and the lead author of a recent study on teen development in Child Development, today’s traditional age freshmen have not yet reached the stage of adulthood that might have been typical forty years ago. “The whole developmental pathway has slowed down,” she said, as today’s 18-year olds “live more like 15-year-olds once did.”

Student development professionals sometimes call today’s eighteen-to-twenty year-olds “rising adults,” since they are still—in many ways—learning the ropes of self-regulation, self-sufficiency, and self-advocacy.

Our students entering college are lacking both knowledge and experience in advocating for themselves when they most need it. For many, parents handled every issue they faced—from scheduling appointments to contacting teachers with questions about assignments or progress in the class (guilty!!)

As they enter college, our students then face a long road of learning how to advocate for themselves…some, unfortunately, depart college as a result of their fear/inexperience in reaching out on their own behalf when they encounter challenges, especially students who are first-generation or underprivileged.

Advocating is a skill and a mindset that students don’t possess when they enter the university.

There are many areas where students need to advocate for themselves in college—this list gives only the tip of ice berg:

Financial support: often, students face a change in their financial situation in their first years in college. Some examples include parents’ divorce, loss of family income, medical emergencies, miscalculation of college costs, etc. In my experience as a teacher, students go through these challenges without exploring all of the available support. I’ve heard from several students who managed to call the Financial Services Office but did not receive the instant help they expected—and they gave up. Students don’t see that finding all the possible veins of financial support takes time and perseverance. It’s tricky–they must ask lots of questions, explore scholarships at program/college and national levels, look for emergency aid where appropriate. If, in the end, students have to depart the university because of financial strain, they also need help imagining how they can re-enter as smoothly (and, with some luck, quickly) as possible.

Course questions and/or challenges: I hear stories every semester about challenges with instructors. Confusions over course material, due dates, grades. Frustrations with lack of clarity or miscommunication. These challenges are often the result of first-year students’ naïveté when it comes to college course practices. At rare times, the challenges with a professor sound serious…the kind that may need involvement by a department administrator. Students, of course, are clueless about how to handle these moments. Some do nothing and grow increasingly frustrated; many stew outside of class with their course peers. Occasionally, a student will jump straight to the top and email a dean or high level administrator. It is easy to find time to offer guidance to students about navigating these tricky scenarios in first-year classes, including helping them understand the “chain of command,” as well as the important first step of respectful communication with the professor.

Opportunities for involvement: I am often surprised at how passive incoming students can be about opportunities for involvement on campus. They are not actively opposed to the opportunities…rather, it seems that they are simply waiting to be invited or pushed into involvement and leadership.

Law enforcement: Students can benefit greatly from talking with a campus police officer, student attorney, or Dean of Students professional in your class about what to do in situations where they are engaging with police—especially when they need to understand their rights.

Advisors: Sometimes students would benefit from changing advisors—or they have issues they are reluctant to seek help for. In either case, they do not realize that making the request is easy and expected as they settle into an academic major.

Roommate or floor-mate tensions: If I just had a dollar for every roommate conflict I hear about in Fall freshmen classes! Despite the many efforts of Residence Life to help students understand their options when it comes to roommate challenges, students often need to hear this overview from other contexts as they wade through the first months of independent life. You might review the Residence Life information about roommates briefly with your class (allow time for trouble-shooting)—and help them connect their scenarios with the bigger issue of self-advocating in college overall.

Mental health needs: Many students will find they need support for mental health challenges in college…even if they did not need this support before. It is never overkill to review students’ options for mental health support (even several times during the semester). Help students to see that there is no shame in seeking support for issues they may try to convince themselves are too minor for professional help.

Tips for cultivating self-advocacy in classes

Helping students learn to self-advocate can involve talking with them about scenarios or case studies of the challenges described above. Consider designing case studies with campus partners and exploring students’ own questions about when and how to self-advocate. Invite guests whose purpose is to explore specific contexts and advice for self-advocating. Talking with students about these situations in individual meetings or conferences is another great time to offer targeted advice.

Students are more likely to practice advocating if they have guidance on effective ways to communicate with various offices and contacts. Designing respectful (template) emails with your students, sharing sample language, and—again—inviting professionals who share what they like to hear from students provide concrete advice that may stick.

Teachers can also step in and advocate when it seems necessary. I never hesitate to walk a student to a campus office when I think they are unlikely to visit on their own…or pick up my phone and call to ask a question (or make an apt.) with the student next to me. While this level of support may seem counter to the self-advocacy mission, it can also be fully needed to dip hesitant students’ toes in the water.   

Remember that learning to self-advocate is a life-long process! As teachers, we can introduce the idea that advocating for students’ needs and interests is both a skill and a mindset that needs time to cultivate…not a personality trait to own or bemoan!

April Heaney

Last Fall, a student joined my First-Year Writing class a week into the semester. He had been in another section but needed to move because of a schedule change. He sat in the back corner of the class, eyes down, not talking to anyone on his first day. I knew from his admission information that he was from a large California city and a first-generation college student—far away from anything familiar in tiny Laramie, Wyoming.

When I read his literacy narrative (he turned it in late because of the change), I saw first the many things he had missed in the assignment. He had written far too little, neglected some of the questions in the prompt, and written hastily. If I remember right, he had focused on his football memories in high school, finishing with a cliché about the power of adversity to help us overcome the odds in our lives.

The literacy narrative is a low-stakes assignment for me, but my first inclination was to tell him some of the areas he neglected in the assignment…if only to signal to him that I would need more attention to the prompt in future assignments. Luckily, I changed my mind and wrote something my gut was telling me would make a bigger impression on him at this stage in the semester—letting him know I admired the work and commitment he showed in football and was looking forward to learning more about him (and reading his writing) in the coming months.

The day I returned his narrative to him, he transformed visibly in class. At the end, he stayed to ask me a question about the next assignment, looking me in the eyes for the first time in two weeks since he joined our class.  My hunch was (and still is) that his experiences with writing classes had been mostly terrible, giving him the message that his writing was poor and his ideas not considered. In future assignments, he worked hard—not always earning top grades, but improving and obviously caring about the quality of his drafts. And, I continued to balance low and high stakes assignments to ensure that he heard unqualified admiration for his thinking…while making it clear that the writing expectations in major assignments were important to helping him improve his communication to the audiences he cared about.  

This story helps me reveal an approach I believe is central to working with underserved and underprepared students: bolstering students’ sense that their ideas are significant (and worth sharing) as part of the goal to convince them of the importance of learning different modes of writing for their college and professional audiences.

Recognizing students’ ideas and contributions can happen in many ways—the goal is simply to be an active seeker of work and thoughts that you can call out and encourage.

In group work
When you’re listening in on student conversations during group work, try to note individual student comments that are helpful or valuable. Rather than mentioning it to the group, wait until you are facilitating the large class discussion in order to weave in these individual contributions in authentic ways. You will see the faces light up when you casually mention their contribution as a key point for the follow-up discussion!

In low-stakes work
Embed small, low-stakes assignments throughout the semester that ask for students’ thinking about readings or work on major assignments. These might be written or recorded on a learning management system (LMS). Look for as many opportunities to praise (and engage) students’ comments as you see them crop up.

In whole class discussion
Especially in difficult discussions, it is important to follow up with students who spoke up and contributed their thoughts when it felt risky. I like to email students individually with a thank you and an invitation to follow-up with me about the conversation if helpful. Sending quick notes to acknowledge other kinds of contributions to class discussion are equally powerful—contributions to all students’ understanding of a new skill, clarifying concepts, adding strong examples, etc.

In improvements to thinking, writing, and research literacies
Writing/literacy teachers are strongly attuned to areas that need improvement in student work; at times, we neglect to recognize incremental or small improvements due to the glaring issues that draw our attention. I try to devote strong focus to recognizing improvements (even marginal gains) over the semester—even if these improvements are not enough to change a poor grade.

In a final semester note
In my comments on students’ final projects (or in a separate email), I try to carve out time to give students a final, heartfelt encouragement at the end of the semester. In this note (it doesn’t have to be lengthy!) I include praise for the (specific) strengths and contributions they brought during the semester, my thanks for their effort, a nod to personal obstacles I am aware of (if appropriate), and encouragement for their journey ahead and the value they bring to the institution (and future profession).

April Heaney

Hands down the most powerful and influential people our students will know in their college years are other students—friends, classmates, co-workers, partners, mentors. Students find these relationships most often through social programming (college-sponsored or off-campus); sometimes peer connections are inspired by a class experience that involves getting to know other students.

As instructors, we have a lot of unused opportunity to encourage connections that matter beyond simply group work or community building through the semester. We can be thoughtful about how to forge connections across semesters in ways that inspire mentorship, modeling, and identity-affirming guidance.

One of the most important steps to creating meaningful connections is to view your students as an extended community. This community is not fenced off by the students in your current classes; rather, your student community stretches years down the road—in some cases even after graduation. When we see our students as an extended group of peers that we can connect to each other in helpful ways, we open up rich experiences for our current students.

Small, literacy focused classes give us many lenses into our students’ strengths and experiences. We may know them in ways that other professors and staff do not. Our knowledge of students typically extends only during the semester we have them in class—in our feedback, conversations, and perhaps in letters of recommendation or social media contacts down the road. Then, when a new class enters, our knowledge of former students fades into the background.

We can make an active effort to keep former students alive in our planning in small ways each semester. Consider these strategies as you think of ways to engage former students in your class plans.   

Invite former students to engage with your students.
There are many great avenues to invite former students into your class. You can invite them as a panel, to speak with your current students candidly about your class (you can leave the room if appropriate!)—to provide advice on the amount of time (and habits) to do well on assignments, manage their time, and act on feedback, etc.

They can also share their challenges in their first semesters and which resources or actions helped them pull out of difficult times. Or, you could invite them to help you facilitate a key activity or project, where the older students can provide guidance and engage with students.

Consider inviting former students that may be most influential to underserved or underprepared students. Avoid simply inviting students with the most success; instead, focus on students who can share a range of experiences and approaches to navigating college setbacks.

Find ways (as possible) to re-invite the former students, perhaps a few times during the semester. Former students are typically flattered by the invitation and enjoy engaging with first-year students as informal mentors. Having a few opportunities to engage with the same older students will help your current students to develop more meaningful connections with them.

Share your former students’ writing or projects with your classes
Students are inspired when they see former students’ work showing up as texts or models during the semester. If these texts represent marginalized perspectives or exemplify how different types of experiences or knowledge are welcome and valued in your class, students are reassured that their contributions will be similarly valued in higher education. I will sometimes invite the authors to discuss their work with the class and answer questions about their process or ideas. As appropriate, I will enfold students texts as either “readings” that we take as seriously as other course texts or as “models” that show successful ways of approaching an assignment.

*Be sure to ask students permission to share their work ahead of time. I will ask students right after I comment on their work to share it in a future class; this makes students feel terrific (many will tell their parents you asked to keep and share their assignment). I also give students an option to have their name removed from the work if they prefer anonymity.

Put current students in touch with former students who may have insights to share about campus opportunities.
If you have former students who lead (or are strongly involved in) clubs, organizations, community service, student government, student employment/work study—or any other valuable endeavors for new students to be exposed to, keep notes on which of your current students may be helped by involvement in these programs. Then, send a list of students to your former student and invite them to reach out to your students (individually) with an invitation to attend a meeting (or meet to discuss the opportunity).

Encourage them to let your current students know that you thought they might enjoy getting involved or learning about the opportunity! (And, it can be helpful to ask your current students for permission to share their contact with others.)

April Heaney

It took me a long (long!) time to come to terms with the truth that all university teachers share the responsibility to help first-year students integrate to college life, resources, and academic expectations. This mission is not solely the task of Admissions and Orientation staff—or advisors and first-year staff. A number of colleges and universities offer a First-Year Seminar or First-Year Experience course that addresses some of the important student resources and academic integration topics; however, many institutions do not have a single point of reference for students to learn these resources in their first two semesters.

It is unfortunate that college transition is not typically seen as a whole-community responsibility in higher education. Even those classes well-suited to offer help are not usually tasked with this important thread. Many teachers assume students are finding out the information in some alternate path, unaware that summer orientation presentations are sometimes overwhelming and always forgotten; optional skills workshops often attract students who are already well-prepared; and Residence Hall communications are hit-or-miss at their finest.

There is no silver bullet to easing the transition to college and helping students find the resources they need to persist in college. Everyone who works with first-years can be the key to helping the most shaky students—sometimes in profound ways you are never made aware of.

Even if your institution has a First-Year Seminar class, consider weaving information about these resources into your syllabus, a weekly dose at a time.  

Advising: First-year students are frequently hesitant to contact ANYONE on campus for help, including their professors, resident assistants, and advisors! It often takes until students’ sophomore year before they realize that their academic advisor is one of the most important people to their college journey. Inviting an advisor to class to talk about all the supports advisors can provide (outside of just registering for classes) can help showcase all of the success coaching, major selection, career preparation, and personality inventory supports advisors provide all year. And, it will help students recognize that advisors are a huge advocate when it comes to unexpected bumps (e.g. course withdrawal, financial obstacles, etc.).

Counseling: Help students connect with free counseling at your institution by inviting a representative in to present on all the issues the Counseling Center is helpful in managing—homesickness, anxiety, depression, stress, and many other serious issues students may deal with in their first year of college.

Student Attorney: It is easy to forget that our first-year students are encountering all kinds of legal questions as they begin life and adulthood without the cocoon of their families’ guidance. I encounter student questions each year related to renters’ rights and contracts, campus and local law enforcement rights and responsibilities, contested traffic and parking citations, and more. Inviting the student attorney on campus, or even reviewing their websites carefully with students, can reduce feelings of helplessness (and increase students likelihood of using self-advocacy when they encounter legal challenges).

Financial Wellness: For many students—but especially those with financial struggles—connecting with the Financial Aid and/or Financial Wellness supports on campus can help demystify successful budgeting in college, and show students how to find funds (including aid and scholarships) during their first year.

Student Organizations/Service Opportunities: First-year students are so overwhelmed with “life in college” that they often miss critical information about how to find student clubs and organizations as well as opportunities to engage in service around the campus and city. These avenues, however, are some of the most important to helping students find their “people” and develop a sense of belonging that they dearly need to navigate through the first year into future years of college.

Study Abroad: I make it a point to introduce students in my first-year classes to all education abroad (and smaller, domestic travel) opportunities available to them as undergraduates. I invite them to start planning now for travel later in their college years—sophomore, junior, or senior year. This effort might not inspire the majority of your students to follow through, but in my experience it will light a spark in a small but critical number. (And, the students who rarely participate in education abroad include men, minorities, first-generation, and low-income students!)

Tutoring and Supplemental Instruction: going to a tutor in middle school or high school for most incoming freshmen was a sign that you were in academic “trouble”—and it was often something to hide at all costs. I try to help my first-year students understand (early!) that tutoring in college is simply part of the routine for students who are acing their classes.

Three Avenues to Fold Resources into a Semester’s Plan

1. Plan connections with support centers based on a general timeline of when first-year students typically realize they have need of these resources. Guidebooks such as the University of Wyoming’s Making College Count can help guide this timeline and your in-class discussions about resources and habits.
   
2. Poll students every couple weeks to gauge their questions and challenges—plan connections with resources based on their feedback to these polls. Make it clear to your class that the resource visits are stemming from students’ concerns and comments!
   
3. Create a semester-long assignment in which groups of students explore a campus resource(s) in their group and share back their findings with the class. The activity can be designed so that one or two groups present every month of the semester. These activities can be based on various case-studies of actual students who struggled and needed a particular resource on campus.

April Heaney

The first four weeks of Fall semester in freshmen classes feels something like the beginning of a summer camp. The excitement and anticipation of students’ arrival on campus and joy about this long-awaited transition permeate the classroom. I’ve often heard these weeks called the “honeymoon” of the semester, and I can’t imagine a better descriptor. In these early weeks, nothing will stand in students’ way to accomplishing their goals for the year and the next four years. I sometimes wonder how I could bottle these weeks’ happy energy and dole it back out to students as weeks 5 through 15 unfurl (for some) like an approaching thundercloud.   

 Students who are first-generation, underrepresented, and coming to college from great distances/ vastly different communities can feel a more pronounced change when honeymoon slides into homesickness and even a sense of helplessness. In addition to telling students to expect this change (and inviting more advanced students to tell their own first-year stories to your class), writing instructors have many opportunities to embed connections with students’ home communities in our assignments.

Putting students in connection with their hometowns—in ways that are both enriching and meaningful to the overall learning objectives—helps students to mold their familiar communities into the college identities beginning to matter to them.

Three Ideas for Connecting to Students’ Home Communities

Integrate newspapers from hometowns or regions into course content
Most new freshmen did not regularly read a hometown newspaper (though some may have seen one or occasionally perused it in their homes). Finding ways to get students reading a home newspaper can carry many benefits for both students’ college adjustment and their literacy skills. A few of these pluses include

• Students are reading news about their hometowns as well as national and global news that informs their civic knowledge and ability to identify problems and issues facing communities.
• The newspaper information allows them to feel a connection to family and friends and converse with them about what’s happening in their hometown—or their region, if they do not have a hometown news source (this activity also reduces the sense of isolation from the familiar for homesick freshmen!)
• Weekly reading allows students to gain familiarity with some genres that could appear in the course—such as opposite editorials, letters, or summaries of complex information for public audiences.
• Finding their hometown newspapers online opens a helpful connection with the library and with your online research tools; students can begin using these tools right away as they locate newspaper(s) they may want to peruse.

The assignment for reading a hometown newspaper could be high or low stakes, and go on for weeks (or months). The newspaper reading might be only for practicing critical reading skills or summarizing/paraphrasing skills; for developing a list of community problems to explore in a larger assignment further into the class; or for an early assignment writing a letter to the editor or op-ed.

Focus on hometown problems and challenges in research assignments
If your course includes an open-ended research assignment in which students can choose a contemporary problem or challenge to explore, consider framing this research as “problems facing a community you care about.” In these assignments, students can spend time researching and connecting to their home communities; practicing their newfound academic skills in ways that include identifying, exploring, and perhaps proposing ways to ease challenges in their hometown.

Rather than spending time on issues that are not specific to a single town—which often leads to all the pitfalls of research topics that are way too broad, too polarized, or too saturated with information for a first-year college project—keeping the focus small invites more meaningful and personally satisfying research. Students often need to consult their hometown newspapers, as well as peer-reviewed or large-scale studies on the problem they identified. And, they can reach out to family, friends, and/or professionals in their hometowns for opinions and expert testimony for their paper. Their academic identities are supported in this research…largely because their own experience with the problem is genuinely important (and necessary) to proposing ways to help.

Example topics (from my classes) include issues with nursing home care; funding and quality of secondary schools; conflicts around dog walking and leash rules; lack of sex education in high school; teacher education in diversity and inclusion; education about vaping for students; affordable housing for low-income residents; sex trafficking funding and prevention in a city not willing to acknowledge the challenges; resources for deaf residents; support for e-bikes among the mountain biking enthusiasts; challenges with cleaning and maintaining beaches in a coastal town.

Ask students to write a letter to a high school teacher or former high school mentor
In their first semester of college, many freshmen have their high schools top on their minds—thinking often about their friends, their teachers, and the ways they were (or weren’t) well prepared for college by their secondary classes. As the weeks pass, students who feel out of place in college experience a feeling of deep divide between that life and their college experiences.

Honoring that high school connections are (and will always be) important to students is helpful to acknowledge in the semester’s discussions. Taking a bit of time for reflecting on ways that high school learning was valuable (or not!) for college allows these thoughts to have a platform—not to mention valuable for merging past and future academic identities.

Students sometimes appreciate the opportunity to write a brief email or letter to a high school instructor or mentor who inspired or helped them. This activity gives students a chance to make a connection with someone (as a college student) who only knew them as a high schooler—in some cases this leads to a new relationship that validates their new college persona. The activity also highlights the benefits of continuing these past academic connections, and remembering to send thank yous to those people on our academic paths who help us along the way.

April Heaney

One common misperception underserved students face in their early college years is the notion that they are “the only one” feeling insecure, overwhelmed, and unable to excel. As they sink further into isolation, students seek ways to give up or look for a route to escape. In many first-year students’ minds (not just underserved!), they believe most of the students in their classes are smarter and more on the ball than them, their professors are a rare breed of human who never struggled with academics or career paths, and they will at some point be exposed for the imposter they feel they are.

Understanding that many of the first-year faces in our classes are hiding keen imposter syndrome can help us experiment with small approaches to address this problem. The following three ideas provide a helpful start, and take hardly any time from the week’s core curriculum.

Tell your own story

In my college years, I never heard a professor share their story of getting through college, graduate school, and the anxiety of landing a job. As far as I could tell, my kind-hearted, elderly 18^th century literature professor wore the same dark blazer and carried books under his arms as a child. It never entered my mind that my geology instructor might have started college as a performing arts major, or that my math instructor dropped out for failing grades and returned several years later. My university colleagues will openly talk with each other about obstacles they faced in college—the esteemed philosophy prof who barely made it through remedial writing, the theater professor who overcame (and still manages) crippling anxiety to become a beloved teacher and mentor.

College instructors believe they must maintain a veneer of a poised, knowledgeable expert to keep their students’ respect. However, underserved students need to understand that the professor who sailed through school and straight into a career without a single hiccup doesn’t exist. (Please message me if you know such a creature). According to your comfort level, be open to sharing your own college coming-of-age stories—the good, the bad, and ugly—as the moments come up during the semester. You will find your students’ anxiety relaxes and their trust in you (and each other) is bolstered in big ways.

Continue the ice breakers (and make them count)
Many instructors use ice-breakers in the first week to help students build community and know something about each other. Then, the ice breakers go away and “content” reigns. Students appreciate continuing these opportunities to touch base with each other as humans and compatriots in a trying time. A few minutes a week can work magic in helping students feel less isolated, and (as a bonus) more energized to attend class on days when their motivation is low.

In planning ice breakers, find some that address isolation and increase students’ awareness of the diversity and similarities among their classmates. Starting the semester by asking students to complete an experiences poll is a good way to start. This poll allows students to share some of their own characteristics and experiences—but without ever revealing who they are.

Through the activity, students recognize that they are far from alone in some of the experiences they might have thought were unique to them. (Thank you to Alyssa Konesko at the University of Wyoming for sharing this exercise!) First, set up the poll using an app such as Poll Everywhere or a survey/polling software familiar to you. Ask students to login and complete the questionnaire using their phone or laptop.

When they are finished, display the results on an overhead projector for all to see. As you display each question, students can see how many others answered in the same way they did—but they don’t need to reveal their response if they aren’t comfortable. Try including both fun and more significant, identity and diversity-related questions. I often stop to ask if anyone is willing to share their experiences with more safe questions—being sure to tell students they do not need to raise a hand if they don’t feel comfortable.

Sample questions can include

I speak two or more languages · I’m from a very small town · I am an only child · I am the youngest/oldest in my family · I have felt discriminated against because of my (religion/race/gender) · I have been on a theme park ride that broke down · English is not my first language · I will be the first in my immediate family to earn a Bachelor’s degree · I consider pineapple a valid pizza topping · I have felt stress because of my family’s income · I identify as LGBTQ+ · I have experienced rude/bullying comments about my physical appearance · I have traveled to more than three countries · My parents are divorced · I’ve met a celebrity · I identify as something other than cisgender · I eat ketchup on hot dogs  · I am a Jurassic Park survivor

Take the wellness temperature of your class
Every couple weeks, ask your students to share their wellness temperature (how they are doing academically, socially, physically, and mentally). You can take the temperature using a polling/survey app, or with note cards, or simply with a show of hands for 1 (poor) up to 5 (just peachy). Use these temperature checks to spark discussions of key habits, stress, time management, and other challenges students feel at the moment. Share your own tips, but allow students to compile approaches they are identifying as useful strategies.

In all of these activities, pay attention to ways you can use the conversations to invite in campus resource representatives to share their services and skills (or take your students to them). I have discovered that my students wanted to know more about the student attorney, the financial wellness team, the Counseling Center, and tutoring services through these activities. Students are much more eager to learn from resources that they have requested through discussion…instead of having them simply arise in the syllabus as part of the instructors’ agenda.

April Heaney

A powerful way for college writing instructors to begin a new semester is to assign a “literacy narrative” as soon as possible. The purpose of a literacy narrative is to encourage reflection about students’ early experiences with literacy learning—including the people, memories, and setbacks that made an impact on students’ ability to read, write, speak, or learn a particular literacy skill. Rebecca Agosta (2017) gives this summary:

“In assigning literacy narratives, professors are asking students to take what they’ve learned about literacy development and apply that to their life stories. Depending on the class and the professor, students may be asked to explore stories that include substantial experiences and people who motivated them, and to reflect on them. Literacy narratives offer students a chance to examine past experiences—be they pleasant memories, uncomfortable baggage, voices, scars, etc.—and allow them to write through those experiences. While reflecting on these experiences, some students can then go further and use their writing as a way of overcoming the resistance found in those moments.”

By processing early literacy memories, students better understand their current attitudes toward literacy-oriented classes—as well as simply engage in conversation about how these experiences end up shaping our relationship with literacy through our lives (especially during school years).

Beginning the semester in this way encourages trust among students (who can share some of their insights with each other) and an opening for professors to understand students’ needs and characteristics. For example, some students reveal issues that may impede their motivation or ability to complete assignments. These include learning disabilities, feelings of insecurity or fear sparked early in their school experiences, or second language challenges.

Student voices (2019 literacy narrative activity)

When I was 14 years old, living in Guadalajara, my family decided to move to Nayarit where we lived for a year….This has not been an easy transition because I am away from my mother, with whom I am very close, and have had to learn difficult content while also learning English.

As a person living with autism it took me a long while to become a good reader.  I couldn’t sit still long enough to really focus on what I was supposed to be reading.  The key to what made me a better reader is the patience my teachers showed in helping me develop my reading skills.  The older I got the more I realized that being a functional reader is a big part of being an adult. 

I often had to read out loud in elementary school…as I began to read to the class, my mind seemed to betray me. I wouldn’t know how to pronounce even the easiest of words, I always repeated the simplest of sentences, and seemed to basically give up. As a young kid I absolutely hated reading. I despised it with a passion, in fact I don’t recall picking up and finishing a book until fifth grade.

In addition to the reflective component of a literacy narrative, it can be helpful to add a second, argumentative portion. The argumentative part of the assignment allows students to think forward instead of solely to their past—and to imagine avenues to promote success in college literacy tasks. The literacy narrative, in this form, carries two tasks for students: first, a reflection on their past experiences with literacy learning and development; and second, an opportunity to argue for ways that students can apply new strategies to help them in college.

Adding the second component of the literacy narrative addresses the benefits of developing a growth mindset studied by Yeager and Watson (2014), two scholars at the University of Texas at Austin who assessed the impact of low confidence on first-generation college students. In their research (published in a New Yorker article by Paul Tough), Yeager and Watson discovered that

“Many [first generation students] believe in what Carol Dweck names an entity theory of intelligence — that intelligence was a fixed quality that was impossible to improve through practice or study. And so when they experienced cues that might suggest that they weren’t smart or academically able — a bad grade on a test, for instance — students would often interpret those as a sign that they could never succeed.”

As part of their study, Yeager and Watson conducted an experiment in which they prompted a subgroup of first generation students at U.T. to complete two early tasks after their admission to the university. Participating students read two short articles about the brain’s ability to learn new tasks and thrive in challenging conditions. Then, they wrote a brief letter to other incoming students at U.T. summarizing this research and encouraging the new students not to give up in times of intense discouragement. In the end (and to the surprise of University of Texas administrators), the group of first generation students who completed these tasks when they entered U.T. achieved strong gains in their first-year success in college over the non-participants (read the study results here).

Conclusion
In assigning a (low-stakes) literacy narrative that mimics Yeager and Watson’s tasks, literacy teachers can help students benefit from the small messages embedded in these experiences. Further, benefits of the literacy narrative include

• Teachers are learning about students’ relevant past experiences and literacy needs
• Students are processing their early literacy-shaping experiences in productive ways
• Underprivileged students can gain critical cues about their ability to overcome setbacks in college courses that might otherwise spark feelings of helplessness and negative stress

Literacy Narrative Example Assignment

First, review the short texts titled “Where Does a Love of Reading Come From?,” “Growth Mindset,” and the fact sheet about literacy. After reading and watching the texts, begin your literacy narrative by writing about your experience with learning to read or memories of your path as a reader in and outside of school. What events have shaped your attitude toward reading and writing throughout your life to this point?
After writing your personal response, use these readings to move into an argument about how students can overcome early insecurity or doubts about their ability to achieve college reading and writing goals. This argumentative portion of your response should be at least two paragraphs long and should include specific references to the articles and fact sheet.

April Heaney

Teachers early in their careers sometimes make the mindset mistake of thinking of their traditional-age college freshmen (or sophomores) as older than they are—imagining that their fresh-faced students are able to think and behave more like an early twenties adult. Many students at eighteen or nineteen are nowhere near the “selves” they will become in only 2-3 years.

When they enter college, our students’ brains are undergoing massive evolutions. Their capacity to handle abstract thought is (for many) just starting to grow. In a couple years they will be better able to “discern underlying principles and apply them to new situations; think about the future considering many possibilities and logical outcomes; consider different points of view at the same time; show increased empathy and concern; develop interest in societal issues; and value the diversity of people (and their perspectives) and appreciate that there may be many right answers to a problem” (State Adolescence Health Resource Center). In fact, developmental scholars argue that achieving traditional milestones of adulthood is a longer and more complicated process than ever before.

Teachers can adjust their mindset to see that students are at different stages in this process toward abstract thought in their first years of college. The vast majority, though, are preoccupied with their own identities–where they fit in, what they are able to do and become, how their own values match with their parents’, and who might be an ideal romantic partner.

Our students who come from underrepresented/underprivileged communities have a harder time negotiating these stages alongside the uncertainty toward their future in college. Instead of possessing a long-formed confidence in their ability (and inevitable path) to graduate, these students feel deep insecurity in their chances of “making it” in higher education. Imposter syndrome abounds. They believe mistakes and setbacks are sure signs that they should throw in the towel. In fact, they are looking for these red flags around every turn. Some do not have full family support for their college aspirations; others are not sure their path through college is worth the feeling of apartness that grows between them and their non-college attending family and childhood peers.

First-Year Student: “My parents not going through the college experience made my first semester difficult for me (and them). I wasn’t expecting the work load and the fact that the professors don’t understand that I need more help than other students do. I have been rethinking being here at college, and I need major help getting it figured out before I leave. I wish I had known that I didn’t have to rely only on myself…there are many resources for whatever you are dealing with but they are not easy to find at first.“

Teachers can help with these challenges in small, literacy-focused classes—these classes are ideal for pairing reading, writing, research, and presentation content alongside weekly attention to issues of identity and college integration. Our students may not find support like this in any other avenue during their first key months in college.

Next week’s blog–and through the coming months–will discuss concrete strategies for teachers. To begin, here are a few tips on setting off on this journey with a healthy mindset:

• Believe whole-heartedly that facilitating academic identity and integration is as valuable as any disciplinary content presented in your curriculum. Sadly, the elitism baked into our understanding of academia is toxic to any progress toward greater social mobility, social justice, and equity in the U.S. We’ve all heard about professors who aim to “weed out” the “bad” students, and those in higher ed who resist helping underprepared students for fear of reducing standards or doing the work of high school teachers. However, authors including Paul Tough and Cathy Davidson give abundant evidence that including social justice goals in early-college curriculum (e.g. Math, writing, science) have life-long positive impacts on underrepresented students, while also “lifting” the entire class’s learning.
  
• Understand that the results of your efforts to support academic identity and integration may not show up in the (same) semester you embed these skills. It has been shown in many studies that students often need more than a few months to act on this learning—even though they can internalize the ideas sooner. In other words, your teaching may (in some students’ cases) become an investment in the future persistence and habits of your current students. Don’t let this delay discourage your commitment to open these doors for your students!  
  
• Some students may not be ready to face college at this juncture in their young lives. In these cases, your efforts will go a long way toward supporting your students’ resolve to return to higher education later in their lives; your teaching may also help them to find a path to exit the university with purpose (and integrity).
  
• Beware of the temptation to find a good book on college transition and success rather than forming meaningful curriculum around these issues. It is important for students to experience these lessons as dynamic, student-centered, and flexible to the needs of the class. Along these lines, avoid a “lecture” or “class visitors” approach to academic identity and integration. These formats may offer a bit of help, but will turn off most students to absorbing or applying content.

April Heaney

I began my career as an advocate for underprepared college students in 2002, when I was invited to teach First Year Writing in a burgeoning program for conditionally-admitted students at the University of Wyoming. This was not a planned move for me; I was fresh out of grad school, teaching at two institutions to earn enough money, and utterly naïve about teaching first-year students. If you asked me to describe my teaching philosophy then, I might have answered that if I knew my content well enough—and cared enough—I could teach anyone with an inkling to learn.

Quickly, though, I realized that not only did I find this work to be meaningful beyond any other teaching I had done, but I loved getting to know my students’ complex backgrounds and diverse plans for life after college. I made it my goal and passion to understand the unmet needs of students who most universities consider a risk to their retention and overall standing.

In this blog, I want to highlight activities and strategies (in literacy-oriented courses) to lessen some students’ deep insecurities about whether they belong in college—and demonstrate how to navigate the maze of higher education success. Each week, I will share an approach to supporting students’ Academic Identity and Academic Integration in higher education. These insights come from my twenty years’ experience in supporting underprepared and underprivileged freshmen as they figure out how to navigate college and new identities.

• Academic Identity – the image students acquire of themselves (through school and home contexts) as possessing essential experiences, knowledge, and community affiliation to thrive in higher education (my definition).  

• Academic Integration – a process of learning the often hidden systems of academic support and behavioral/mental habits that support success in higher education (my definition).

This blog is not meant to help teachers develop more content-heavy approaches to teaching literacy underprepared students; instead, these strategies are complimentary to teachers’ approaches to building writing, reading, research, and communication skills in their first-year college classes.

Teachers who spend time regularly with underprepared and underprivileged students know well the tangle of issues that some students (from all walks of life) face on a daily and weekly basis: financial anxiety, family challenges, unsuited habits and mindsets, learning disabilities or mental health concerns, etc. I will not (fully) discuss challenges beyond academic integration/identity; but, my weekly ideas will create more touchpoints for teachers to know students’ issues more concretely–and create a plan to support.

Academic identity and integration are often featured in literature about student retention and success; scholars including Vincent Tinto, Robert T. Palmer, Alexander Astin, and Mike Rose, (among others) focus on evidence-based approaches to boosting student success in college and beyond. My ideas are in no way revolutionary! I do hope that readers will appreciate another set of ideas that connect large-scale approaches to weekly/daily work with students. My aim, in fact, is to introduce nuts and bolts ideas that inspire readers to develop their own original strategies, for their own contexts.

Conclusion

Activities alone are far less important to students’ ability to succeed than our commitment to recognize identity and integration as critical to our students’ progress, in literacy and in higher education. My greatest insight over the past decades is (in a nutshell): teachers of early college literacy need to embrace the process of facilitating identity and integration as much as they revere teaching concepts like thesis, information literacy, paragraph development, evidence, audience awareness, etc. Bringing all of these critical literacies into our classes makes the most difference to students’ ability to carry their learning into the futures they–and we–imagine in the first hopeful weeks of college.