| This paper details a one-semester qualitative case study of six nontraditional students at a small Midwestern two-year college in the Fall of 2012. Seeking to uncover the prior genre knowledge nontraditional students bring to First-Year Composition, this research relies heavily on interview-driven data encompassed in three interviews with each of the six participants. Drawing upon theory rich in Rhetorical Genre Studies this study aims to reveal the antecedent genres that nontraditional students bring forward from "the gap," or the space occurring between academic contexts. Utilizing Mary Jo Reiff and Anis Bawarshi's terms "boundary guarders" and "boundary crossers" this paper highlights the ways in which three nontraditional students are stuck between the borders. With strong ties to previous domains of work and personal domains and an inability to recall past academic contexts with ease, participants struggle to successfully apply prior genres when taking up the first draft of the first writing assignment. In turn, this makes it difficult for them to cross boundaries effectively. The conclusion offers takeaways from this study, implications for two-year writing instructors, and suggestions for future research. |
