Skip to main content

Responding to Students with Writing Anxiety

Anxiety may result in assignments being late or not turned in at all. A history of incompletes may be a sign of writing anxiety. Often the student is emotional when discussing his/her writing.

Writing anxiety can be related to:

  • a failure to understand the assignment
  • the lack of pre-writing techniques for starting the assignment
  • lack of general time management skills
  • procrastination
  • poor organization skills
  • problems with grammar
  • poor grades on writing assignments in the past
  • a learning disability
  • Have a private appointment with the student.
  • Listen carefully to the student’s explanation of the problem.
  • Look for patterns and repetition of the problem behavior.
  • Refer the student to the following Academic Resources
  • Refer the student to the Writing Center of the English Department (301) 405-3785.
  • Refer the student who speaks about a learning disability to the Accessibility and Disability Service of the Counseling Center (301) 314-7682.
  • Refer the student to the Counseling Center (301) 314-7651 for psychological counseling, if needed.
  • Concluding that the student is only trying to obtain extra time for the assignment.
  • Assuming the student can simply control the behavior by him/herself.
Back to Top