I am currently working to update my teaching philosophy, and I’ve been reading about the most recent trends in educational practice. Because I am particularly interested in how literary studies can pair with civic engagement, I’ve been reading a lot about community-based learning. I’ve also been reading about “grit” and education. This isn’t a brand new idea–you may have already seen Angela Duckworth’s TED Talk on the subject from 2009. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, it’s basically this: there’s something besides intelligence that pushes people to succeed. Duckworth calls this “grit,” and it stands for perseverance, the ability to set goals to work towards them, stamina, and the willingness to keep going after failure.
I think this makes sense to most people. It certainly does to me. I haven’t had my IQ tested, but I’m not confident that I’d have a high score. Standardized tests aren’t really my thing, but I do have the ability to work for a long time on something that I care about–even if that process is painful (most recently…my dissertation).
The question for educators is whether grit can be taught. Where do people learn to behave this way? Is it something that happens in the first few years of life? Can we encourage students to delay gratification and instill a love for learning? Can grit be measured in the classroom?
Some educators have responded to these questions by building learning experiences that foster a “growth mindset.” In other words, these teachers encourage students to focus on the process of learning and to be okay with setbacks. They praise students for their determination rather than their knowledge of the right answer. Students who develop a growth mindset believe that their hard work will pay off. In his book Fostering Grit: How do I Prepare My Students for the Real World?, Thomas R. Hoerr describes the process this way:
“Working to develop grit means occasionally and thoughtfully presenting students with learning obstacles that they must overcome to find success. When doing this, we should support our students by providing them with clear tasks, strategies, care, and encouragement. Consistent success is not the goal here; the real goal is for students to feel frustration so they can learn how to respond to it. This approach is a far cry from the usual, in which we seek to avoid frustrating students, but teaching children how to respond to frustration and failure requires that they experience frustration and failure” (5).
After thinking about this pedagogical approach and the classes I teach at the university level, I realized that composition classes are the perfect places to try grit fostering. College composition instructors emphasize that writing is a process–and a difficult one at that. We provide targeted feedback to encourage students to improve, we facilitate reflection on how they could improve, and we help them set goals for improvement. This structure doesn’t avoid frustration; rather, it often creates ample opportunities for students to feel frustrated, and it encourages perseverance as students work to refine their writing.
Although the writing process inherently prompts students to experience frustration and failure, I want to work on some strategies that will enhance grit development in composition classes. I think that I do a good job praising determination in my interactions with students during class time, but I probably need to work on how I praise students in written feedback and assessment. Feel free to share any successes or failures you’ve had in the classroom while trying to teach grit!
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