Writers Self Evaluation

Students cannot trace all the sources that inform who they are at a given moment, but all of them can explore a wide range of sources that inform their sense of self, clarify their values and their relationships to the world and others in it. Writing about family fits especially well into a sequence in which students narrate a personal experience, describe a hero, interview someone who is "different," compose a source-assisted report, and write an overall evaluation of themselves as writers. Students can do any or all of these things writing about family history. Such exercises remove history from the privileged ranks of scholars; they give students a chance to create a space for the other, to write their families "in" by digging into their pasts and sharing it with present readers who also have a stake in it. A personal family history is offered as well as a world wide web address which focuses on genealogy and composition. Contains 10 references.