The Idea of an Essay, Volume 2

177 tutelage of her Ph.D. level composition professor. Sarah had never been a strong writer and had no interest in Freud or argumentative essays. She felt out of place and isolated on her first day of class. Meanwhile, the professor continued to instruct her pupils, confident that the students would complete the course with a feeling of belonging among professional writers, unaware of Sarah’s dilemma. Sarah’s predicament represents a dire problem confronting freshmen college students today. From the first moment that some freshmen students arrive in their writing classes and meet their accomplished professors, they hold the assumption that the instructors are a part of a lofty field and that they as inexperienced writers are outsiders. The freshmen’s’ single desire is to learn a few helpful tips to improve their skills. They don’t aspire to anything higher, such as becoming a part of the writing field as accomplished composers. In her research study “A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing across the Curriculum,” Lucille Parkinson McCarthy observes that Dave, a freshman subject of the experiment, approaches each of his writing classes with different attitudes and expectations. In his Poetry class, a course with which he is the most unfamiliar, Dave views the class from the perspective of a stranger, attempting to grasp the subject, but failing to achieve the level of poetry interpretation and composition that he desires. His final grade of a C plus reflects his incomplete comprehension of the topics in the class. In her review of the results, McCarthy states that a large part of Dave’s problem rests in the fact that though this student strives to perform at a maximum level in the class, he views himself as an outsider to the material that the professor presents. This attitude affects both his social interaction with his teacher and his other activity in the course (237-250). Many freshmen students identify with Dave in their feelings of incompetence and isolation within the writing field, as their attitudes influence their performance in the course and the grades they receive. In addition to relating to Dave’s experiences, some freshman students also connect with the pupils that Gary R. Hafer describes in “Ideas in Practice: Supplemental Instruction in Freshman Composition.” Hafer comments that many students entering freshman composition courses not only dread but also despise the course. This may be due to their insufficient preparation for the college level writing field in previous years of education