The relationship between research and autobiography is explored. The planned study was a qualitative study of literacy methods instruction at the college level, a case study of one class of students and their professor. The study was based on the premise that preservice teachers need experience-based learning opportunities in the classroom in order to acquire a practical teaching pedagogy and knowledge base. As the study progressed, it became not just an observer's account of another teacher, but a self-reflective and open-ended research narrative. The issue of the researcher's subjectivity became an important dimension of the work. Unless the researcher understood herself in relation to the study, there was no basis for judging alternatives, initiating change, and responding to students' needs in the learning process. Autobiography became a link between theory and practice in the dual roles of teacher and researcher. It played a role by allowing the researcher to make sense of experience after the fact. (Contains three handout pages and nine references.) (SLD)