This paper uses narrative accounts to explore intercultural experiences and the perception of the self by second language (L2) users. The analysis follows poststructuralist and postmodern theories of cultural and language identity. Extracts from the autobiographies of three chicano writers from the 1980s to the new millennium, Richard Rodriguez's…

The article explores the purpose and methods of teaching the personal narrative in foreign language classrooms. Following a cross-cultural comparison of the history, purpose, and form of autobiography in first-language contexts in the United States and Japan; a review of the place of personal narrative in second- and foreign-language composition…

This autobiography relates the experiences of a young Ojibway boy who was taken from his family in 1939 at age 10 and placed in a Jesuit boarding school in northern Ontario, Canada. St. Peter Claver (later Garnier) or "Spanish," as the Indian school was known, was home to approximately 135 boys. Most of the students, who ranged in age…

As part of an effort to learn from reflecting on personal history and autobiographical writing and analysis, this paper shares one teacher educator's experiences in learning to teach. The process of learning to teach a field experience course for elementary school teacher candidates at a teachers' junior college in Taiwan is described. The…

This study was conducted in order to examine programmatic and personal dimensions that interact to shape a future teacher's beliefs and practices. The study charted stages of preservice teacher development through dialogue journal case study analysis of eight students representing divergent academic disciplines and cultural biographies. The…

By following the "steppingstone" or marker theory of dividing one's life into no more than 12 and no less than 8 significant periods, a student in a writing course can develop a brief response for each phase to articulate multiple experiences. Writing teachers can aid students in realizing that important life experiences are the stuff of…

The ability to infuse language with qualities of the human voice in the act of speaking is what distinguishes autobiography as a genre and makes it most suited to teaching students subtle features inherent in the complex act of writing. When students write from personal experience, they consciously begin to shape their identities in one direction…

The study of liberal arts and sciences and teacher training have drifted apart, reinforcing polarities between theory and practice, intellect and action, collaboration and competition. Brooklyn College (New York) has reorganized its curriculum to bring them back together. Students write and reexamine autobiographical accounts of their own…

Examines the nature of disadvantage for minority students, solutions offered by radical theorists, and roles that stories play in furthering progress with antiracism. The paper examines the centeredness of the white middle class; teachers' perspectives; monocultural curriculum; shortcomings of multicultural education; possibilities from critical…

This book recounts the personal experiences of a woman who learned three languages (French, Italian, and English) in addition to her native Russian. She learned French as an emotional and intellectual escape from difficult conditions as a Jew in the Soviet Union, then learned Italian in Italy while she and her family waited to gain entrance into…

When she began teaching, one instructor thought everything had to come from her. It took a couple of years before she understood that what students themselves bring to the experience is instrumental--even vital--in helping them connect with what happens in the classroom. In their freshman composition journals, students produced writing based on…

Emma Minde (nee Memnook)was born in 1907 in Saddle Lake, Alberta. In 1927 she was given by her father in an arranged marriage to Joe Minde, who lived in Hobbema, Alberta. In this recorded autobiography taped in 1988 when she was 81 years old, little is said about her parents and her life as a child other than that she spent 7 years at a…

For high school and adult readers this autobiography of Polingaysi Qoyawayma (Elizabeth Q. White) relates a Hopi Indian woman's struggle to adjust to an alien culture and to develop teaching methods to bridge the gap between Indians and the white world. Information on Hopi legends and ceremonies introduce the reader to the Hopi way of life. Born…

This book presents edited versions of the personal narratives of 24 Mormon women who taught school in frontier Utah. Drawn primarily from the archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the accounts detail the women's lives as Mormons, as pioneers, and as teachers and have been edited to focus on the education of women,…

Examines the possible roles and contributions of postmodernist thought to educational research. Models some of these approaches in its consideration of interviews collected during a project reviewing the careers of educational researchers. Provides a number of verbatim transcripts from the interviews and discusses their various narrative and…