Got Grit? Building Grit Through Deliberate Practice in the Legal Writing Classroom
Posted: 11 Sep 2015 Last revised: 13 Oct 2015
Date Written: August 31, 2015
Abstract
The article explores the role of grit in student success during the first year of law school -- the year during which students are most likely to face disappointment and failure and drop out as a result. In light of recent discussions on teaching "the academically underprepared" students, the article examines the role of non-academic skills, such as grit, in student success and recommends possible ways for building these skills.
One possible way of building grit, which psychologists define as "passion and perseverance for long-term goals," is through the concept of growth mindset: the idea that students' ability to learn is not fixed, but rather, that it can change depending on student effort. The article suggests that another way of building grit and instilling in students the skills necessary to help them succeed both in law school and in practice is through deliberate practice. In its theoretical essence, deliberate practice has been defined as "a highly structured activity explicitly directed at improvement of performance in a particular domain." Relying on the use of deliberate practice in medical schools as a case study, the article proposes specific ways for incorporating deliberate practice in the legal writing classroom designed to equip students with the skills necessary to make them practice-ready professionals.
Keywords: grit, non-academic skills, deliberate practice, practice-ready, skills, innovation, teaching, pedagogy, legal writing, academically underprepared students, student learning, growth mindset
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