votes of self-confidence...

It seems students need them, too. A student from my British literature survey last semester wrote a wonderful paper on Donne's Elegy To his Mistress going to bed. When I gave her back her paper, I asked her if she'd email me a copy. Today, out of the blue, coming out of Shakespeare, she asks me "What is it that you liked about my paper last semester?". I told her, then asked her about how she felt about it, and she said she never knows how to look at her own writing when it's done; she usually thinks there's got to be something wrong with it. I'm exactly the same way.