Recent research has focused on the use of reflection to examine teaching practices of preservice and inservice teachers. Limited research, however, has been done by university science educators on their own practice. This study involved two university science educators collaboratively participating in such an activity with an inservice teacher. It…

A study investigated the ways male and female fifth-grade writers compose short, open-ended autobiographical narratives. The research focused on whether students composed narratives reproducing society's prescription of reality according to gender roles, or whether they found their own voices, writing as autonomous writers representing their own…

A study examined how students developed as readers from their own point of view. Reader autobiographies and questionnaires were collected from 272 advanced, general, and basic level 12th-grade high school students from a variety of high schools in the state of Georgia. In addition, three students who were characteristic of the three types of…

To understand literature, it is necessary for a reader to make connections between the text of the literary work and the text of the reader's life. Student autobiographical writing before reading can be used to enhance students' ability to make such connections. Autobiographical writing helps students apply relevant life experience that might not…

Composing and telling stories can allow a person to resist and revise those confining stories drafted by others. As an illustration of the powerful role narrative plays in English teachers' research and teaching, a pre-service teacher's autobiographical story narrates her refusal of the oppressive roles she had been assigned. The teacher's story…

For some instructors, the use of students' own experiences has proven to be an extremely useful starting point in the college composition classroom. In a first semester freshman composition course, students wrote autobiographies in which they examined different perspectives of the many communities in which they lived. Students then used the…

Poliomyelitis, a virus that quickly attacks the central nervous system, struck the United States in 1916 with devastating results. Twenty-six states reported some 27,000 cases, claiming 6,000 deaths. The morbidity rate continued to climb during the next four decades until 1955 with the introduction of the Salk vaccine. It proved to be especially…

This paper discusses the life, theories, and therapeutic techniques of psychotherapist, Viktor E. Frankl. A brief biography of Frankl is included discussing the relationship of his early experiences as a physician to his theory of personality. Frankl's theory focusing on man's need for meaning and emphasizing the spiritual dimension in each human…

Pointing to the widespread neglect afforded to the works of nineteenth century Afro-American women authors, this paper discusses, and presents excerpts from, the works of many of these authors to show the types of concerns they wrote about. Among the works discussed are the following: the slave narratives of Harriet Jacobs and Elizabeth Keckley;…

The literature of Polish, Greek and Italian American women has been largely neglected in the American literary tradition. Through an analysis of female characters in a number of white ethnic autobiographical novels, this paper stresses the importance of an awareness of women's struggles which coincide with immigration history. It also points out…

An autobiography, "Barrio Boy" is the story of Little Ernie, a boy born in the tiny mountain village of Jalcocotan in the State of Nayarit, Mexico. Divided into 5 parts, the book offers vivid descriptions of the author's early life--his family, his friends, his surroundings, as well as events in the journey from Jalcocotan that eventually ended in…

This document reflects the diversity of the field of Disability Studies, including contributions representing different disability groups, perspectives, and disciplines. Resource information is presented in nine sections: (1) Books, Chapters, and Articles; (2) Films and Documentaries; (3) Academic Programs in Disability Studies in North America;…

In the hope that students would develop authority in their writing, they were instructed to write a personal essay about themselves. Most of the essays, however, were mediocre and formulaic. While one student's experience of the painful loss of his mother to cancer was tragic, his essay was cliched. Supporters of the use of personal essay in…