Revised Project #1 Proposal

For Project #1, I would like to explore the writing construct that states that students cannot use

 

 personal narrative or relevant anecdotes in academic writing. Originally I was going to explore the

 

 general use of first person, but my research and my previous experience working in interdisciplinary

 

 studies sparked an interest in this vein of the scholarship instead. In the research I have completed

 

 so far for my Intro and Synthesis, I have discovered that writing in many interdisciplinary fields, as

 

well as cultural studies and gender and feminist studies, employs personal narrative as a means to

 

 relate their personal experience to larger social issues. Using personal narrative also addresses the

 

value of diversity, which these fields hold dear. Additionally, related scholarship indicates that

 

teaching students how to write effective personal narratives helps build rhetorical skill sets. In my

 

paper, I will argue that absent in this discussion is a clear methodology for teachers on how to

 

introduce appropriate usage of personal narrative in writing for the interdisciplinary fields. Teachers

 

need scholarship that shows them how to teach students of interdisciplinary, cultural, and

 

feminist studies to effectively write about and contextualize their personal experiences and

 

use them as valuable primary sources for their academic papers.