The Stories We Tell

Abstract

Last week, I told you about my daughter Amanda's first experience with “hard math.” My guess is that the young people in your life have their own stories to share. No doubt they have struggled and failed at something important to them. Surely they have stories of success, too—perhaps, as it was for Amanda, following a dark period when self-efficacy was at a low point. If, as four decades of research have shown, self-efficacy grows with small wins, does anything turbocharge such learning? A recent experiment supported by Character Lab suggests that experience is an even better teacher when followed by writing. Students spent 15 to 20 minutes writing about a time they failed, and at least one way this failure changed them for the better, as well as a time they succeeded, and the steps they took to “make this success a reality.” Compared to a control group, the students who did this writing exercise demonstrated greater academic persistence, which in turn predicted better grades the following marking period.