Since my last two posts have focused on administrative kinds of issues (professional development and assessment) I thought maybe I should write about something a little more practical this time around, something more directly related to teaching. In attempting to incorporate more writing into my sociology/social psychology courses I often ask or at least encourage students to write about themselves as part of an assignment. Depending on the assignment this usually yields some interesting results and students seem to love writing about their identities and experiences. I think this especially makes sense when it somehow involves students learning to think critically through thinking about the individual in relation to the collective or applying sociological concepts. I also tend to think that assignments asking students to reflect on their experiences or place in the world are somehow more engaging although I’m not sure this is always the case.
Most of my students respond well to this type of assignment; others respond a little too well. While I do my best not to ask invasive questions or give assignments that might bring up overly emotional issues that are difficult to handle, there are always a few who write about some really intense personal issues. Suffice it to say my experience in human services has come in handy more than once. Although I have never had a student complain and many enjoy the opportunity to write about experiences or identities they’ve really never had a chance to talk about, I still end up feeling some anxiety about giving this type of assignment. Am I asking too much of them? What does this kind of disclosure mean for the teacher/student relationship? Of course, many of us in the social sciences are hyper-aware of these issues in our research but what about in our teaching? I would love to hear some reflections on this and, having pretty much taught only in the social sciences, I’m curious if this issue has come up for folks teaching in other disciplines.
Oh, yes, students love writing about themselves! When I used to teach basic English Composition, I used to ask them to write one “personal narrative essay” per semester. Then I felt like a therapist and football coach combined. In most cases, the writing was fine, but I had some students writing about traumatic incidents in detail, and I felt I again diagnosed a specifically American malaise. (After years in the US, I still get surprised by just how much the media promotes the public airing of all private issues in one’s life.) Some of my students wrote the way they wrote because they needed the attention they did not get in a place like a therapist’s office, but others were riding a kind of individualism that turned into pretty transparent sensationalism.
I have been teaching upper-level courses for a while, and there are many reasons why I prefer doing so, one of them being that I do not need to deal with disconcerting personal issues. (It usually gets the better of me, and there is a healthy sense of distance I need when I teach.) Now, I am also aware of the irony of the fact that my dissertation is about autobiography as a genre.