| In postsecondary education, online enrollment is rapidly increasing. Some of these incoming adult students enroll in online, Composition II courses and are assigned a classic literary canon for analysis and literary response. Some adult students claim that classic literature is dated, boring, or disengaging. The specific problem was that students who were disengaged with the assigned reading material or struggled to read in online, Composition II courses often have difficulty developing analytical skills necessary for real-world skills. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenology study was to explore students' perceptions and lived experiences to determine if they believed reading the classic literary canon impacted their critical thinking and analytical writing skills in an online Composition II course. Further, the intention of this study was to explore mature students' beliefs if the readings were applicable to real-world contexts. A purposeful sample of 10 college students were chosen to answer five semi-structured interview questions and examined through the theoretical framework of andragogy. Though data analysis, the major themes identified included: (a) interest, (b) disinterest, (c) positive impact on critical thinking skills, (d) no impact on critical thinking skills, (e) positive impact on analytical writing skills, (f) no impact on analytical writing skills, (g) relatable to real-world contexts, and h) not relatable to real-world contexts. Minor themes included: (a) apprehension, (b) frustration, (c) length of content, (d) deeper meaning and (e) different perspectives, and (f) better reading content choices for today's student. The findings of this study may help postsecondary instructors and administrators understand students' perspectives regarding classic literature as an online, Composition II curriculum for the purpose of engagement, development of analytical reading and writing skills, and application to real-world contexts. Recommendations for further research include a qualitative phenomenology study comparing students' perspectives of classic and contemporary literary selections, a study exploring specific adult learner opinions of real-world skills impacted, and a quantitative study to evaluate impacts in critical thinking and analytical writing skill through students' grades. |
