Re: Checking the Personals

[Denise Rogers <drogers@linknet.net>]

Katie wrote:
>
>I used to assign "The Personal Essay" as a genre.  I don't do that
>anymore. I find the term "personal" is so misunderstood, so often taken as
>synonomous with "confessional" or "private" that the use of it with
>students often results in their feeling pressed to write about the things
>you mention below.  Instead, I see "the personal" on a much broader basis
>these days.

In my 101 class this summer, I'm using the Axelrod and Cooper text _Reading
Critically, Writing Well_. They have a section called "The Reflective
Essay." It's worked pretty well for my students; they include some personal
experience/observed experiences plus their own thinking on the subject. The
writer need not come to a definite conclusion about the topic, nor try to
solve the problem (s) presented in the essay. They can raise questions,
muse about answers, but they don't have to feel they have *the* answer. I
just looked over them, and each essay is interesting in terms of topic and
method of tackling the assignment. I'm looking forward to reading them.

Denise