Writing in personal genres, like autobiography, leads writers to public voices. Public voice is a discursive quality of a text that conveys the writer's authority and position relative to others. To show how voice and authority depend on genre, I analyze the autobiographies of two writers who take opposing positions on the same topic. By producing…

Nelson Mandela's autobiography "The Long Walk to Freedom" describes how an iconic political activist and freedom fighter reflected on, and sometimes modified, four core assumptions at the heart of his struggle to overturn the White supremacist, minority hegemony and create a free South Africa. Critical reflection's focus is on…

Narrative analysis of personal events provides an opportunity for identifying autism specific issues related to language and social impairments. Eight personal events were elicited from three groups of schoolage children: 14 high-functioning with Autism Spectrum Disorders (HFA), 12 non-autistic with developmental language disorders (DLD), and 12…

The past and present provide an important reference to understanding the circumstances and cultural differences that assist in the development of our methods of interaction. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to provide a process of personal self-reflection of experiences by which administrators, school officials, staff, and faculty can…

This article examines the implications of educational policies on teachers' beliefs and practices for English learners (ELs) in the context of the California educational reform agenda. By utilizing cultural-historical activity theory, this study paints a personal and pedagogical portrait of how 2 educated and experienced bilingual teachers…

In school classrooms, teachers are always asking their students to tell stories about their lives in the contexts of family and neighbourhood. But what are the conventions and expectations that govern the stories that are told and written in classrooms? In what ways are students encouraged and constrained in writing the stories of their lives? Why…

This article presents an interview with Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Santos is a professor of Sociology at the University of Coimbra, where he is the director of the internationally renowned Centro de Estudos Sociais. He offers a rich vein of theoretical reflection and translation for language(s) and intercultural communication.

The author's autobiographical poem [inspired by George Ella Lyon (1999)], marked the beginning of an arts-based inquiry into a question of identity that took further shape through a video-artwork, "The Evolution of an Art Teacher: Where I'm From." Arts-based research is a methodology that uses a myriad of forms and combinations of creative arts…

While "Where the Wild Things Are" may be Maurice Sendak's most popular book, "In the Night Kitchen" is arguably the greater work. Though his journey in "Wild Things" shares many of the elements of Mickey's adventure in "Night Kitchen"--swinging between the protagonist's initiatory verbal assertions and silent, completely pictorial spreads that…

This autobiographical essay by a retired biology professor reminds teachers and students that pursuing a demanding career specialty--even a very satisfying one--need not stifle detours into byways of speculative curiosity where one can be "surprised by joy."

In this article, I portray undergraduate education students at an urban, inclusive university participating in the process of defining their emerging philosophies of education. Excerpts from student writing demonstrate that, in a course organized around key essential questions, double-entry journals, and students' consideration of their…

The authors investigated the relationship between the acquisition of cultural life scripts and the degree of coherence in children's and adolescents' life stories. Three groups of Danish school children aged 9 to 15 years participated. In 3 sessions, they wrote down a recently experienced single autobiographical event, their life story, and their…

This article focuses on whether people have the resolve to integrate spiritual development into youth worker preparation. Once an organization is convinced that attentiveness to spiritual development has the potential to enrich and improve youth work practice, equipping youth workers with the necessary skills and capacities can proceed. A model…

This study examined the educational trajectories of academically resilient first-generation Latinas in college. More specifically, the study focused on the factors that led them to become academically successful. The researcher of this study conducted a narrative inquiry analysis of the K-16 educational trajectories of five academically resilient…

This article presents a small scale, qualitative study of nine majority alternate-route teachers and the perceptions they hold about themselves as urban educators and their urban students' academic abilities. Data for this study was collected through self-reflective, written interviews and meta-reflective responses to two published teacher…