An autobiography course for nontraditional students at community colleges can foster appreciation for cultural diversity and integrate discourses that challenge writing genre hierarchies. Students who signed up for such a course developed processes that worked best for them. Selected as texts for the course were autobiographies that reflected…

A writer and educator with an obsession for writing and a concern with the teaching of writing demonstrates how all writing, in many different ways, is autobiographical and that autobiography grows from a few deep taproots that are set down into the past in childhood. Autobiography (described as the way an individual makes meaning out of his or…

Black autobiography can only be viewed sensibly in the classroom if an attempt is made to come to terms with the social and historical milieu in which the work was produced and with the persona and ethos of the writer. Critical failure to do so puts critic and text at a serious disadvantage because such failure restricts critical vision to the…

This paper presents the thoughts of a retired teacher about experiences in education--both as student and as teacher. Following descriptions and reactions, it is concluded that the problems of education are most manifest in the public funding of education--especially federal funding--since the institution and continuation of programs is not based…

In these memoirs, Richard Henry Pratt (1840-1924) recounts the history he lived through and helped to make in 8 years of frontier army service and as founder of the Carlisle Indian School. In 1867, Captain Pratt arrived at Fort Arbuckle, Indian Territory. The following 8 years culminated in the collapse of the hostile southern Plains tribes.…

Older people grow and develop psychologically; they do not necessarily decline in intellectual functioning; and they are capable of learning and enriching their own lives and the lives of others with their wisdom and experience. However, in a fast-paced and impatient culture, little time is given to hearing what older people have to say. Older…

A study examined the portrait of the woman journalist as revealed through the autobiographies of eight women journalists whose careers spanned the decades of the 1920s and 1930s. The portrait was derived from several factors in the autobiographies: education and career commitment, character of personality traits, jobs in the profession, statements…

This paper describes the methods used to teach identity formation in a college course entitled "Identity and Society," through an exploration of the autobiographies of several prominant Americans. The three phases of an autobiographical approach to one's present identity are discussed as the search for facts according to criteria, illustrated by…

This study examines several genres of Nuyorican literature (works by and about Puerto Ricans in New York) in an effort to demonstrate how authors interpret the political and social contexts of their environment. Works analyzed are the dramas "Short Eyes" and "The Sun Always Shines for the Cool" by Miguel Pinero and "Noo…

Antebellum slave narratives can be valuable literary materials in four different kinds of literature courses. In a survey of American literature, slave narratives serve as records of the attitudes and activities of early Americans, as examples of travel literature, and as examples of late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century adventure…

The 2-volume Appalachian bibliography is alphabetically arranged by authors' last names under alphabetically listed subject headings. Volume I contains A-L subject headings, while Volume II contains L-W subject headings. The majority of the 8,220 documents cited are annotated and were published between 1891 and 1970. The bibliography contains such…

The student teaching experience often creates affective friction between the student and his supervisor which may have debilitating effects on the student's self-image and ultimate performance in the teaching role. This study reports on the formal evaluation of a technique (developed at Clark University) of sharing personal biography which aimed…

Argues that instructors might have more success in teaching analysis and exposition--public forms of writing--if the autobiographical writing of undergraduates were viewed primarily as a private way to find ideas, not always as material itself to be shaped into public autobiographical prose. (MS)

The autobiographical essays in this volume offer insights into how the field of education might change as women assume positions of intellectual leadership. After the "Foreword" (Mary Catherine Bateson), the 13 chapters are: (1) "Research Lives: Women, Scholarship, and Autobiography in Education" (Anna Neumann and Penelope L.…

New voices and perspectives from an increasingly diverse student body challenge educators to reconsider customary ways of seeing and doing the business of teaching writing. This challenge led researchers at Rhode Island College to create an informal writers' group with peers rather than instructors as facilitators. Writers' Informal Network (WIN)…