The Idea of an Essay, Volume 2

180 strategy the best method for resolving low levels of performance due to attitudes of incompetence and isolation. The use of in-class peer review workshops aids the effectiveness of the approach involving the incorporation of freshmen students as competent writers within the field of composition. When freshmen students receive the opportunity to review the writing of their peers and suggest changes, attitudes of confidence and proficiency in writing replace feelings of incompetence or isolation, as students attain an active role in the writing field. Furthermore, self-images of alienation from the writing field disappear as students operate as professionals, editing and discussing others’ compositions. As a freshman in Dr. Wood’s Composition course at Cedarville University, I had similar feelings of incompetence within the writing arena at the beginning of the course. Through in-class peer review sessions, however, I began to view myself as a capable individual in the writing field as I read the compositions of my classmates and proposed plausible revision strategies. A practical way to incorporate this method into teaching is by planning at least one workshop per writing assignment in the course of the semester so that students have the opportunity to edit one another’s papers, yet there is a sufficient amount of additional class periods to hold lectures and perform other activities. This technique of in-class peer review workshops is a practical and effective way for professors to integrate freshmen students who feel inadequate within the writing field, along with the second component of the effective solution that encompasses professors providing opportunities for individualized conferences with their students. The professors’ use of conferences with their students in an exclusive setting adds to the success of the resolution strategy of integrating freshmen students into the writing field. As McCarthy’s concludes from her experiment, part of Dave’s difficulties in his poetry class result from his insufficient correspondence with his professor (256). If Dave’s poetry professor had held conferences with each of his students to discuss their compositions, Dave would have felt more confident in his abilities and thus would have had a greater potential to achieve higher grades and mastery of the course. Furthermore, conferences between a professor and a student allow the teachers to explain the expectations for each writing assignment and permit students to ask questions regarding their papers on a level