Freedom to Fail: Madeline Sutton

When Madeline Sutton, assistant professor of the practice for the Thompson Writing Program, was in the fourth year of her Ph.D. program, she applied for a highly competitive national fellowship in education. The application process was intense: She needed a personal statement, a work plan, a detailed narrative about her dissertation research, and letters of recommendation from mentors.  

She spent months working on the application, and, along the way, she worked closely with her dissertation chair, a mentor from her master’s program and professional writing consultants at her writing center.  

“I was energized by the idea of finding a wider audience for my dissertation research,” Sutton said, “and the fact that it would acknowledge that research as being innovative or insightful.” 

Then the decision arrived, and she didn’t get the fellowship. 

Because she had involved so many mentors and colleagues in the process, she felt that she had “failed in a really public way,” she said. “They knew I was applying, and I had to tell them I didn’t get it.” 

Their reaction was the opposite of humiliating: The people whose opinions she valued most didn’t see the outcome as a failure at all. 

“It was amazing to realize that my failure didn’t change the way they felt about me,” Sutton said. “It was accepted as a normal part of the process.” 

While she didn’t receive the fellowship, the work she had put into the application paid off in ways she hadn’t anticipated. Writing about her dissertation helped Sutton clarify the story she was trying to tell with her research. 

“Before that process, I had really struggled to express the contribution or value of my dissertation to an outside audience,” she said.

"Failure is just a point on your way to somewhere else." 

That same year, other opportunities opened up. Sutton received a scholarship to attend a major conference in her field and took on a leadership role in her department. Looking back now, the fellowship rejection barely registers. The experience reinforced something Sutton now emphasizes in her teaching.   

“Failure is just a point on your way to somewhere else,” she tells them.  

In her writing classes, Sutton intentionally creates an environment where students feel safe taking risks. Rather than traditional letter grades, many of her assignments are assessed as “complete” or “incomplete,” shifting the focus away from perfection and toward effort and experimentation. 

“If you invest the energy and give it a good faith effort, you will get an A,” she tells students. 

Her goal is to remove the fear that keeps students from trying something new. 

“Taking big risks in writing is one of the best ways to become a more effective writer,” Sutton said. “But we often hold ourselves back because of the fear of failure.” 

Many students arrive believing that writing ability is something you either have or you don’t. Sutton pushes back on that idea. Inspired by the book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” she encourages students to focus on persistence, or 'grit.” As Sutton puts it, “Talent counts once, but effort counts twice.” 

“If effort is what makes you successful, that means anyone can succeed if they try hard enough,” she said. 

Ultimately, Sutton wants students to view failure differently. It’s not a judgment on her student’s ability, but a part of learning. 

“I like the idea of failing forward,” she said. “Failure doesn’t mean you’ve reached the end. It means you’re still on the path.”