knowing thyself: getting students to dig deep in personal
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Student Success in Writing Conference 2021 SSWC Presentations (April 16, 2021)
Apr 16th, 2:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Knowing Thyself: Getting Students to Dig Deep in Personal Knowing Thyself: Getting Students to Dig Deep in Personal
Narrative Essays Narrative Essays
Eric Grunwald Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Grunwald, Eric, "Knowing Thyself: Getting Students to Dig Deep in Personal Narrative Essays" (2021). Student Success in Writing Conference. 17. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/sswc/2021/2021/17
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Know Thyself, StudentGetting Students to Dig Deep in Personal Narratives Eric Grunwald
Lecturer II & Acting Director-to-be English Language Studies
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Agendadocuments and slides at documents and slides at http://bit.ly/SSWC_KnowThyself
● Why push?
● Samples
● Prompt / Try it
● Other tips
● Questions?
Why push students?
● Otherwise, you get “admissions” essays; they don’t learn anything new
● Socrates: “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.”
○ Cervantes, Don Quixote: “Know thyself, which is the hardest thing in the world to do.”
● Peter Elbow: “When students leave the university unable to find words to render their experience, they are radically impoverished.”
● Narrative a new root metaphor in psychology & social sciences
(McAdams & Pals, 2006)
○ We construe our life as an ongoing story
○ helps construct identity, decide how to behave, be integrated into
our communities (209)
○ “The process of putting life experience into a meaningful
narrative form influences psychological growth, development,
coping, and well-being” (210).
Sample 1: “Look at Me”
“He no longer had his hair due to the chemotherapy, and his immune system was
so damaged that he slept over 15 hours a day, but Denis still found time to show off
and present our work in front of 300 people from all over the world. He aroused
confusion in me—and huge admiration—about how one person can be strong enough
to enjoy life and stay himself despite anything. I wish I could stay myself all the
time.”
Sample 2: “Look at My Eyes”
● Chinese male● Graduates of his high school come for visit, and he goes
out with them for lunch. ● needs to get back for class, but they ask, “Where are
you going?” so he stays, is late getting back.● gets in trouble, has to stay after and clean the room. ●
To my surprise, Ms. Zhou . . . said to me tenderly, … “It was your friends who told
me not to blame you because they thought that you had asked for a leave and
volunteered to help you after knowing that you would be punished.” A mixture sense of
guilt and regret hit me, for it was me who was always hiding behind people, not saying
a word and making others confused.….
...I used to believe that it was a wise choice to pretend that everything was fine
when it was not, but now I had to call this choice into question. . . . I used to worry that
my words would displease others because I was taught to use discretion and speak
less in public, so I prefer not talking a lot or expressing my needs. In retrospect, I
realized that it was me who was giving myself pressure. I couldn’t be understood if
others didn’t hear my voice. Moreover, I was actually putting pressure on the others,
who wanted to hear from me….
Building trust and other keys1. Read personal narratives
a. Cherokee Paul McDonald, “A View from the Bridge,” Annie Dillard’s “The
Chase”
b. previous student narratives
2. tout (Academic) writing as discovery:
○ Flannery O’Connor, “How can I know what I think until I see what I say?”
○ Einstein: “If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”
3. “The writing is always better when the writer is most emotionally
engaged.” —(qtd. by?) Leslie Epstein, Boston University
Try it.
● See prompts.
Tips
● In assignment: Require scene, dialogue, concrete detail. “Show” more, “tell” little.
● Feedback crucial: “What the writer is avoiding is what the story is really about.” —Jim Shepard○ National Book Award finalist for Like You’d Understand,
Anyway (2007) & professor, Williams College● Review proposals first of event and what they learned about
themselves○ comment on it; push them there.
● “Look at My Eyes” author○ Proposal: “I should not break the rules; disrespectful.” ○ Me: So then what made you do it? What made you
stay later?○ “I was afraid to say no.” Because…? “Because that
would hurt their feelings. I was taught…” ○ “Because I didn’t want them to be mad at me or
dislike me.” Ah-ha!● But be reasonable: Student whose grandfather had just
died…● Read-around of final drafts…
References● Cervantes, Miguel de, Don Quixote. 1605-15. Ch. 42
● Elbow, Peter, “Reflections on Academic Discourse: How It Relates to Freshmen and
Colleagues.” College English, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Feb., 1991), pp. 135-155
● Horgan, John, “Why STEM Students Need Humanities Courses.” Cross-Check blog, Scientific
American, Aug. 16, 2018. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/why-stem-
students-need-humanities-courses/
● McAdams, Dan P. & Jennifer L. Pals, “A New Big Five: Fundamental Principles for an Integrative
Science of Personality.” American Psychologist, Vol. 61, No. 3, 204–217, April 2006
● Shepard, James, Workshop feedback. Sirenland Writers Conference, Positano, Italy, March 2009.
● Also recommended::
○ Turkle, Sherry, “The Flight from Conversation,” The New York Times, April 21, 2012.
○ Burke, Kenneth, “The unending conversation,” (1939).
What questions do you have?
Eric Grunwald
docs & slides at http://bit.ly/SSWC_KnowThyself