Summary, Frederickson and Bay

Libby Bay's 1999 TETYC article reports on a survey Bay conducted at her home institution, a community-college in New York, "to explore the reasons mature persons take a life step once confined to the young, the difficulties and satisfactions they experience, and what colleges can do to respond to their needs" (305). There is much to learn about the life experiences of adult students in this article. But Bay's survey focuses on questions related to adult students educational background, development, and plans and does not focus specifically on literacy development or the transition to academic discourse.

Great quote: "If anyone has stories to tell it is the returning adult student." (306)

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Nontraditional students need special assistance in overcoming writing anxiety. (top of article, 115)

In her TETYC article, Elaine Frederickson draws on her experiences teaching writing to nontraditional students to A) speculate about why such students are often "silent" in the composition classroom, and B) to offer suggestions about how to move such students to voice.

This essay has three purposes: to congratulate those who have contributed in personal or public ways to the changing needs of nontraditional students, to make public some approaches which have worked for me, and to encourage further efforts toward improving and reporting on programs which benefit these important members of our classes. (115)

What can be done to lessen fear in the writing classroom? (117)

Frederickson provides a series of recommendations such as frequent small group work (with occasional same-sex or same-race groupings), the creation of a feeling of community, teachers accept stylistic variations in student writing, frequent writing practice and an absence of censured, deferred grading, journal writing, frequent positive feedback, encourage personal writing, individual student-teacher conferences

The various causes of silence...lack of power in the academic setting, feeling outnumbered by traditional-age students, a conscious choice to resist a system which they oppose, a lack of feeling of trust/support,

Teachers who understand the complexity of students’ anxieties and make an effort to overcome them can enable student success. (121)