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Readings for Adult Students

1. Essays about nontraditional students’ education experiences can prompt discussions about prior learning experiences and current assumptions that can dispel anxiety and provide you with valuable information about your students. Two good and widely anthologized such essays are the “Saved” chapter from The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Mike Rose’s “I Just Wanna be Average” from Lives on the Boundary.

2. Writing about writing provides an entry into discussions of the writing process and what constitutes “good writing.” Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts” chapter in Bird by Bird helps students get the idea that they do not need to wait for the perfect idea before starting to write and that even professional writers struggle with writing. Grammar Girl, http://grammar.qdnow.com/, has the advantage of being written for a nonacademic audience and so gets into the nitty gritty of grammar rules without being pedantic.

3. Essays that show how one can connect personal experiences to concepts can be useful models for adult students. Both the Malcolm X and Mike Rose essays mentioned above do this as do many of the essays in National Public Radio’s “This I Believe” series, which is available at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4538138.

4. Finally, and probably most importantly, collect essays from your prior students. Seeing a variety of sample papers provides adult students who are worried about just not getting it with a security blanket. Sample papers also help adults see academic conventions, from formatting to standards of evidence, that we like to assume younger students already know. Since student essays are generally less polished than published models, they tend to be more accessible than published essays. Students can analyze the elements of the model papers and discuss the decisions the writers made as a way to learn how to break down and approach a writing task. Having a variety of samples for each assignment lets students see that a task can be approached in a variety of ways.