Why College Students Fail?

Students are required to take English all four years of high school to improve and develop skills for higher education. We read different types of literature to learn morals and explore new ideas. With writing assignments of résumés, formal letters, and essays, students establish a foundation for future responsibilities in college or a job field. Vocabulary expansion is woven throughout everyday tasks in the English classroom; word choice is crucial to our professional and educational futures. Accumulated writing and reading skills are used in preparation for standardized testing, such as the SAT and ACT. English class improves the confidence in students with reading, writing, and speaking skills. In four years of English, written literature greatly impacts one’s learning experience.

In Dan Berrett’s article, “Students Come to College Thinking They’ve Mastered Writing,” the idea of freshman thinking they are or must be a refined writer is discussed. Students may think this way coming into college, but their teachers do not. While students might feel satisfied and think that they are prepared with their writing skills, professors found that these students did not necessarily meet the expected level (Berrett 1). Many students reported that they would normally write around 25 hours every week. They said that most of those hours of writing was for more formal purposes like passages to make changes in society (Berrett 1). It was found that one reason the new students might feel this way is that their assumptions about writing differed greatly from those of faculty members and their expectations. One big thing that students will not get for a while, is that good writing is not just listed as a bunch of steps one is to follow that automatically make one’s writing good. Good writing requires one to be in different mental states; it requires the understanding of how to write for different audiences and different reasons (Berrett 2). Berrett includes in the article that writing is not just universal and that in order to do very well, writers must use different forms of writing specifically for their purpose (2). It seems as though students think that, before they even take a class, they are supposed to know everything about writing; in reality, they are supposed to learn new skills and enhance others (Berrett 2). Berrett says that many believe the schools these students previously attended with their test focus might cause these feelings about writing (2). Berrett ends his article by saying that students these days do not think that informal writing actually counts as writing, and that students should practice writing for informal purposes because it can help them (2). Even if they feel like it, students are not fully prepared to write in all contexts when they arrive at college.

Through the years in America, more students in each generation of college are being successful and finishing college. "The latest data show that just 40 percent of Americans have finished an associate's degree or above, while an additional 22 percent attend some college but failed to graduate" (Kelly, p.1). The 22 percent of college students who are failing to graduate, could be the college students who are not being successful in college. There are many reasons why students are not successful in college. Some main reasons students are not successful in college are typical because of drugs, stress, time management and procrastination, lack of desire and persistence and also poor self-esteem and lack of self-confidence.

When one enrolls into an honors or advanced English class, there are many worries that come to mind. These worries create thoughts such as ‘Am I a good writer?’, ‘Will I pass?’, or ‘How do I even start a paper?’. My teachers never specifically taught me to write. My teacher that I had for 9th grade English and my 10th grade honors English class always gave good grades. Once I got into my first AP English class, I felt as though my writing was inferior. In my distress, I went to the internet and I found that you do not have to be gifted in academic writing to get good grades on your essays, I found that organization is the key to writing a powerful essay.

In recent years, the majority of students enrolled in dual credit classes at Carrizo Springs High School, specifically the English class, have shown that they are not prepared for the workload and expectations of this college level class. Consequently, many of these students end up dropping the course after the first semester and find themselves in overcrowded “regular” English classes. If these students had received proper preparation and instruction in writing prior to their senior year and enrollment in ENGL 1301 Composition and Rhetoric, they would have been more successful in dual credit English, upper division courses, and future careers.

When you start to think about it, quickly you realize that almost everything we do in life has some sort of writing around it. Whether it be sending a simple text message or writing a long essay we all have to have the common foundation of how to write. As students progress their way through high school we are often pounded with the rules of writing. By the time you get to be a upperclassman you quickly learn that your days of learning how to write are not over once you get to college. As someone who is looking to study Aeronautics at Liberty University, still, the days of learning to write are far from over. Because Liberty University requires students to participate in two writing based classes my skills will continue to be developed. Even

Another reason for learning how to write in the college level it is because all college classes you writing as a medium for assignments. As said by the author of Writing for Learning to Improve Students’ Comprehension at the College Level, students are” required to write

Some future college students are born with a natural talent in the subject English. Which includes critical thinking, writing, and reading. While for others, possibly being mathematicians, English is and probably will never be their keen subject in life. Students find more passions in sciences, arts, and medical teachings which is not something to look down upon. Although, many students forget that English is still a huge part of all these subjects. Where ever these students go they will find the necessity to read something or to write something. That’s where college English comes in handy. College English prepares students for academic writing at a university level, and also for their careers when formal writing is required. Many students fear college English classes, but there are many ways to succeed in these college English classes. Looking over the articles Becoming an Active Learner by Skip Downing, Brianology by Carol S. Dweck, and The Right to Fail by Willliam Zinsser, these authors express their feelings on being able to succeed in life in a general view. Mainly taking education into consideration. Students should not be afraid of college English classes because their are many ways to succeed in them by establishing a growth mindset, creating an active learning pattern, and having a positive and mature attitude.

In “How Do I Write a Text for College” (The World is a Text, 2006), Patty Strong said that writing in in college is much more different than writing in high school and so as the purpose of it. In high school student were told to write texts depending on their prior knowledge while on an institution of higher education students have the flexibility to write not only about what they already learnt but what they are trying to learn. In addition, writing in college requires a higher level of critical thinking and understanding, but it will unequivocally expand their knowledge.

In the article by Downs and Wardle “Teaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions”, the author’s state a common misconception of writing for first year composition is that academic writing is somehow universal. This idea can be misleading since teachers have always taught that there is a basic set of rules for writing. However, I agree with the idea that writing is not universal because college students write for a various number of discourse communities and do not have one general audience. Content, context, and genre are bound to change while attending a university.

In this article, “College Success” written by Bruce Beiderwell, Linda Tse, Thomas J. Lochhaas, and Nicholas B. deKanter, they explain the differences of high school and college writing, expectations of the instructors, and the types of papers that are assigned. Most students who struggle in their writing are usually still going through their transformation into college, without even knowing it. Though, how can you see these symptoms? “Students who struggle with writing in college often conclude that their high school teachers were too easy or that their college instructors are too hard” (Beiderwell, P. 1). When going into college there are all sort of ways of writing an essay, in high school you were taught the five paragraph basic

In Peg Tyre’s article, The Writing Evolution, he addresses how some students struggled with writing in schools and how more time needed to be spent on teaching the proper aspects of writing. In his article, Tyre mentions a specific high school that took large measures to figure out why their students were doing so poorly on english and writing exams. This particular high school, New Dorp, made a writing revolution in which they placed an intense focus across nearly every academic subject, teaching the skills that underlie good analytical writing (Tyre 4). They received extraordinary results. Pass rates for the English Regents, for example, bounced from 67 percent in June 2009 to 89 percent in 2011 (Tyre 4). The number of kids enrolling in a program that allowed them to take college-level classes shot up from 148 students in 2006 to 412 students in 2011 (Tyre 4).

In this journal, written by Elizabeth Wardle, she discusses the bridge between high school level writing and collegiate writing. Although some students come to college well prepared in their writing ability, others fall short of the expectation and often focus too much on the structural nature of writing, rather than the writing itself. Wardle elaborates on the ideas that high school educators typically desire for the students to focus on the information in said paper, in lieu of discovering a wider variety of techniques and genres. A high school student writes a paper to put his/her thoughts onto one cohesive document. It is a rarity to find one student who writes for the art of writing. Wardle does an excellent job

English is a hard language to learn, for there are numerous elements of effective usage and writing. Many people, including me, struggle in writing because of a lack of knowledge. Since middle school, English was not a strong suit of mine. I struggled with the simplest of tasks often taking a considerably longer time to complete a task than the other students. Unmotivated teachers and a lack of interest resulted in remedial writing skills. To put it simply, I had little confidence in my writing and I dreaded taking the class because of the writing involved. In spite of my fears, I took the course and I was able to perfect and challenge my mediocre writing skills.

When I first started college I did not know what to expect with an English class. I liked writing about topics that interested me, but high school did not allow me to do that. I took American History and we would have to write