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Teaching Writing to Adult Learners:
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Writing Assignments for Adult Students1. Design assignments that allow adult students to use their life or prior writing experiences as they transition into academic writing. For example, you can have adults write expository papers on an area in which they have expertise or have them do community-based writing projects in which they can document or engage with local community issues (for more on community-based writing projects for adult students, see my “Keeping it Real” on service learning cited below). See also Alice Gilliam’s experience portfolio assignment as summarized below and explained in her essay “Returning Students’ Ways of Writing: Implications for First-Year College Composition.” 2. Have students take an academic essay and turn it into a business memo, journal entry or e-mail message. This allows you to discuss the different decisions a writer must make due to differences in the rhetorical context. 3. Here are some annotated assignments developed for primarily adult community college students: http://faculty.ccc.edu/mcleary/CCCEnglish/ |