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Readings for New Teachers

When you have just a little time and want to learn more about adult students and writing, the readings suggested below will be helpful. If you have more time and would like to know more, see the Bibliography available from the Adult Learners Home page.

Although Sommer and Uheling note the affinity between adult education and composition theory, adult students themselves are not always thrilled by our “new-fangled” teaching styles. Student-centered teaching can sometimes provoke resistance and frustration from adult students. Belzer argues that this response can be understood if one sees how adult students perceive current instruction through the lens of their prior learning experiences. To address this resistance, she recommends explicit discussion of students’ prior learning experiences, their current expectations and the teacher’s rationale for his or her practices.

Gillam demonstrates the impact of prior, nonacademic writing experience on the sometimes misunderstood ways in which adults approach academic writing. She argues for having students assemble experience portfolios in which students present “a prose vitae describing significant life experiences, a writing history and writer’s profile, and writing samples” as a way to understand where students are coming from, build community and diffuse anxiety in the class, and help students leverage their experience (12). She details the reasons for and multiple ways to make use of such a portfolio (12–14). Reading this article will help new teachers understand how to recognize and make use of the strengths in the writing adult students can produce. Gillam opens with descriptions of three different yet quite typical adult students.

While Gillam asserts that the strengths her students have developed in their prior writing experiences “often result in rapid writing growth” (8), Randall Popken argues that, because adults are familiar with more genres of writing than younger students, the process of learning academic genres can be more complicated. In particular, Popken shows how some adult students struggle with the academic move of making a claim and then supporting it because they have little experience with this type of writing.

Sommer works to bridge the divide between research in composition and that in adult education, trying to explain the theories of each to the other, point out the shared ground and then present implications and suggestions for practice. He includes many well-detailed suggestions for how to develop writing classes and activities for adults in the academy as well as at the workplace.

As her title suggests, Uehling focuses on mixed-age classrooms, giving specific suggestions for teaching. Like Sommer, she demonstrates the affinity between adult learning theory, in particular Malcolm Knowles’ theory of “andragogy,” and student-centered writing instruction.