What is Expressive Writing

In this chapter, the author sets out to explore the best strategies for not only supporting peer tutoring during a pandemic, but also to better acknowledge the mental strain many students have experienced since COVID-19 emerged. Using a composition and rhetoric studies approach as well as psychological research, the author proposes that professionals in higher education need to actively find ways to incorporate “expressive space” for students to work through hurdles in their learning because students are now processing significant traumatic experiences and motivational challenges while pursuing their academic goals. Tutoring coordinators and educators are encouraged to give students opportunities to mindfully engage with internal and environmental obstacles in order to persist throughout their academic career and in the lives they lead after college.