Source #1

I should first probably inform everyone of my topic before I get into the sources. For English 621, my paper will be debating personal narrative based writing or sourced, academic writing assignments in BW classrooms. From what I've found so far, BW classes should utilize both types of writing, starting out with personal writing and moving into academic writing.

The article I found, Personal Writing Assignments, was written by Robert J. Connors and appeared in the College Composition and Communication in May 1987. This article gives a history rundown of how personal writing assignments have been used in Composition classrooms. Connors focuses early on in the article on classic rhetoric and draws from the great Greek and Roman philosophers to prove his point. He stresses the importance of rhetoric in early "classical" educations and talks about how during the time before the Romantic movement.

He basically says that the Romantic movement, first and later, modal discourse (narration, description, exposition, and argument) that were the initiators of the personal writing movement in composition. He concludes with the same basic idea I have already mentioned, "On the level of practical teaching, most of us take, I think, a sort of middle position. Learning that one has a right to speak....is an important step. Personal writing...is necessary for this step, especially when one is being encouraged to enter the conversation at age eighteen" (181).


Connors, Robert J. "Personal Writing Assignments." College Composition and Communication. 38 (1987): 166-183. Jstor. MSU Library, Springfield, MO. 12 March 2009.