Gray Hair in the Front Row, Cabbie in the Back: What Writing Teachers Need to Know about Adult Learners CCCC New York March 23, 2007

Many of Our Students Are Adult Learners 40% of college composition students are 25 or older. The Department of Education predicts that adult student enrollment will increase more rapidly than that of students under age 25 between 2002 and Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2005). Digest of Education Statistics, 2004 (NCES ), Chapter 3,

As a profession, we have barely noticed adults as a unique group of learners At the 2006 CCCC, two panels and one special interest group were devoted to adult students. In contrast, nine panels were devoted to second language learners. The “Call for Program Proposals” for this convention included a sixty word sentence listing identity labels such as “basic,” “race,” and “sexuality.” Age was not included.

This year 16 panels, special interest groups or workshops include at least one presentation on adult students. Two panels and one special interest group focus on adult learners exclusively.

Those preparing to teach composition will find... No advice on how to work with adult learners in the Allyn and Bacon Sourcebook for College Writing Teachers, 2nd edition or Lindemann and Anderson’s A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers.

Only a few mentions of adult students in Tate, Rupiper and Schick’s A Guide to Composition Pedagogies and always in the context of basic writing. Sections on “Gender, Race, and Class” and “Teaching English as a Second Language” but not on age in the Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing.

One page of speculation in the 572 page The St. Martin’s Guide to Teaching Writing, 5th edition: “teaching them [older students] well will likely require that we rethink our notion of whom we teach and our assumptions about them. Having older students may ultimately affect our assignment-making, class discussions, and dynamics inside and outside the classroom just as having students from a variety of linguistic and ethnic backgrounds often does” (452, emphasis added).

“Although we know of no research concerning the ways in which the presence of this population might affect the writing classroom, we know from personal experience that these students have different kinds of goals and different strategies for reaching them than their younger counterparts” (451, emphasis added).

There is some research, but not much The research that has been done comes primarily from the field of adult education, tends to be based upon very small data sets and generally focuses on basic skills and literacy rather than freshman level writing. With the exception of some work in basic writing and on working class writers, rhetoric and composition scholars have done very little research on the unique needs, demands and processes of returning adult writers.

A few things we do know about adult learners... They are diverse, bringing a range of prior educational, cultural, and writing experience to the classroom. They are different, with different needs, strengths, approaches to writing and to school than younger students. They are coming to a classroom near you.

Our Goals To help you better respond to the needs and leverage the strengths of your adult students To promote attention to and research on adult learners in the field of composition and rhetoric

Teacher Aides, IT Managers, and Telecommunications Workers: What Writing Teachers Need to Know about Adult Learners “In the Middle” Mike Michaud The University of New Hampshire Diverse Voices All Singing in the Same Key: Portraits of Adult Learners in a Multi-Cultural Composition Classroom Sonia Feder-Lewis School of Graduate and Professional Programs Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota Teaching for, to and with the Adult Composition Student Michelle Navarre Cleary The School for New Learning, De Paul University