ABSTRACT
Students learn something aside from mastering course objectives in the classroom, whether it is a community college pretransfer class or a senior seminar. Depending on their life circumstance, students bring unique assets to their educational experience while developing and fortifying habits of mind that generate success. These habits of mind can be shared with others in the class, with future classes, and are what students take with them as they proceed in their educational journey. Their success at the end of the semester is a testament to persistence, and students can help each other learn what it takes to make it through. There are many wonderful essays about letters out there that can offer students inspiration, such as Garrison Keillor’s “How to Write a Letter” and Mark Twain’s “Advice to Youth”. It is a great way to wrap up by having students create a transfer of learning for themselves and the next group of students.
