I find myself focusing my energies in my Basic Writing classes on helping students not only become better writers, but also to build confidence in their writing. On a regular basis, I encounter students, both L1 and L2, who fear writing because of a fear of the countless red-marked grammar errors they must correct when their paper is returned. Students entering college-level writing courses are not sure of what they are supposed to revise and this problem is compounded in Basic Writing by a lack of confidence. There needs to be a teaching method that aids in the improvement of student revisions while also building the writer’s confidence in each paper.  I am impressed by the model course that Bartholomae and Petrosky implemented in their Basic Writing Program and I believe that by pulling aspects of this course that aid in building self-confidence while simultaneously heeding the advice Ferris offers and recognizing the importance of teaching audience, Basic Writing instructors can begin to accomplish these daunting tasks.

My classes are rarely comprised of only native English speakers, so as I was reading, I looked for a means of incorporating Bartholomae’s self-confidence building with Ferris’ work on L2 immigrant and international students to seek a harmony between these two divergent texts. Ferris argues that L2 learners work well with specific types of feedback and that, generally, these forms of feedback focus on lower order concerns, but correctly crafted higher order statements and suggestions can lead to successful revisions for students as well. The key to effective revisions is learning what works specifically for individual students. I would further argue that we cannot just provide students with the type of comments they already work well with, but we must teach them how to address comments that may not fit this mold. Ferris recommends using marked papers to teach students revision strategies and I believe this is not only a good idea, but also the key to helping build self-confidence in the writers.

Ferris’ suggestion worked well with what I considered the strongest part of Bartholomae and Petrosky’s course model. Their course utilizes the students’ texts as course reading, and I believe this method could not only garner more effective revisions, but also build confidence in the writer. Often, I use student models from previous classes as examples and I know that students appreciate having a sample to work with. Several semesters ago, I used a sample from the class I was teaching and it made a great impact on the way students responded to the text. They were able to ask specific questions of the actual writer and get concrete feedback about how she had revised. Previously, I was only able to provide hypothetical information about how the model student had undertaken revisions. This shift in paper forms led to two specific changes in my classes. First, the writer gained self-confidence in her revisions and began to demonstrate this improvement in her next drafts. Second, other students began to start experimenting with more revisions on their own papers and asking that we discuss their paper during the next revision workshop. There was a gradual change in the writing styles of several members of the class, both L1 and L2 learners and this change came as a result of using a current student’s paper.

Unfortunately, I cannot give concrete evidence of the success of this model in Basic Writing; my experiment was with a Composition II class. However, I would hypothesize that this model would aid in the confidence building of Basic Writers, and improve their revision strategies. My rationale for this hypothesis lies in the fact that students gain confidence when their work is selected as the class sample; it demonstrates that their writing was “good enough” for this display. Also, given the opportunity to speak to real writers about real revisions has the potential to aid students in better understanding the revision process by providing them with concrete examples that are well explained.