Implementing Writing Support Circles With Adult Learners in a Nonformal Education Setting

Abstract

Most students come to their graduate programs with academic writing skills insufficient to excel in their studies. A lack of academic writing skills among graduate students has been a problem in a college of education at a large southeastern public research university where the project described in this article was implemented. To address this lack of academic writing skills, a new service, Writing Support Circles (WSCs), was designed and implemented for a small group of Latina students supported by a grant as a pilot program. WSCs are a series of workshops intended to create a community of learners who work together on improving their academic writing with guidance of a facilitator. The purpose of this article is to share the author’s experiences with designing and implementing WSCs with adult learners in a nonformal education setting at a university.