Some Attitudes of Returning or Older Students of Composition

Abstract

In recent years, a growing number of older students have begun or have returned to college. These include housewives, veterans, clerical workers, and professionals such as registered nurses, all of whom are seeking college credit and many of whom are seeking bachelor's degrees. Although there are a few special courses and programs for these students, most of them are mainstreamed at once into classes with students of traditional college age.' The growing number of returning or older students in freshman composition courses, in particular, raises questions about whether they should be taught in the same way as their younger classmates. The experience on my own campus of an increasing number of such students is typical of colleges across the country. At Edgecliff, a former women's college where women still comprise about 80% of our students and where students over 21 years of age comprise 25% of our student body, older students, particularly women, have been quite visible in recent years, especially because of an active organization they created to help non-traditional (i.e. older, returning, married, handicapped, or special in other ways) students with practical concerns such as study methods and babysitting services. Teaching these students in the midst of our students of traditional age and background, I began collecting my own impressions of them: they seem to be what the Victorians would have called earnest; they are dedicated, hardworking students (even when employed full-time); they look for guidance and direction, hesitating at times even more than traditional students to follow their own insights and intuitions; at best they can bring a wealth of reallife experience and a richness of variety to the traditional classroom. But I questioned whether my impressions were accurate and, if so, what implications they might have for teaching. To test my observations, I devised a brief research instrument, a questionnaire on attitudes toward writing and toward methods of teaching writing, that could be administered to composition students on campus. In doing so, I