Based on interviews with students who had recently returned to school, this essay demonstrates the need for, challenges of, and ways to respond to the writing anxiety many adults bring with them back to school. Jessica and Sam were two of twenty-five newly returned adult students whom the author spent over sixty hours interviewing in the fall of…

Considers how students and teachers use Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) to respond to writing anxieties. Notes that experiences with TO have encouraged the continuation of experimentation with the theories and practices in and out of the classroom. Discusses how TO places instructors in creatively vulnerable and edifying positions.…

Explores the relationship between mathematics instruction and writing instruction, particularly their similarity in causing student anxiety. Offers specific teaching methods for reducing writing anxiety. (HB)

Argues that nontraditional students need special assistance in coming to believe that they have something valuable to say and in learning to express it with authority. Discusses the complicated nature and causes of the silences of nontraditional students, and describes numerous things that can be done to lessen fear and resistance in the writing…

Describes a study of students' anxiety levels in the writing classroom. Results indicated a significant rise in anxiety level for "writing papers for grades," and a marked fear of failing a test. (HTH)

Reports on a study of eight corporations to assess the nature of writing done on the job, and how important writing ability was to the employee's career. Results indicated that communication ability was important to their jobs, but most employees loathed writing and considered quality writing beyond their grasp. (HTH)

Reports the results of a study indicating the anxiety of returning students is not as high as instructors think it is and that returning students experience a greater reduction in writing anxiety than do regular students in a freshman composition class. (AEA)

Describes a feedback mechanism devised by a college composition teacher to collect student reaction to his writing assignments and to enable him to help them with their individual writing problems. Explains how the resulting teacher-student relationship approximates that of an editor and a writer. (RBW)