1st Edition
Teaching Life Writing Theory, Methodology, and Practice
Teaching Life Writing: Theory, Methodology, and Practice combines research in life writing and pedagogy to examine the role of life stories in diverse learning contexts, disciplines, and global settings. While life stories are increasingly integrated into curricula, their incorporation raises the risk of reducing them to mere historical evidence. Recognizing the importance of teaching life stories in a manner that goes beyond a surface understanding, life-writing scholars have been consistently exploring innovative pedagogical practices to engage with these stories in ways that encourage dynamic and nuanced conversations about identity, agency, authenticity, memory, and truth, as well as the potential of these narratives to instigate social change.
This book assembles contributions from a diverse group of international educators, weaving together life writing research, critical reflection, and concrete pedagogical strategies. The chapters are organized around three overarching conversations: the materials, practices, and mediations involved in teaching life writing within the context of contemporary social change. The unique perspectives presented in this collection provide educators with valuable insights into effectively incorporating life stories into their teaching practices. Featuring works by over a dozen educators, the volume interlaces life writing research, critical reflection, and tangible pedagogical practices.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies.
Foreword: Life-Writing Research beyond “The Black Hole” Effect
Julie Rak
Introduction: On Teaching Life Writing in an Age of Social Change
Orly Lael Netzer and Amanda Spallacci
Part I—Teaching Life Writing Forum: The Process
1. Teaching Black Life Writing in the 2020 US Election Season and Beyond
Joycelyn K. Moody
Part II—Teaching Life Writing Forum: Materials
2. Scraps and Maps: Handwriting and Drawing as Early-Stage Process Methods for Autobiography
Vanessa Berry
3. “Show and Tell”: The Risks and Rewards of Personal-Object-Based Learning
Marina Deller
4. Grasping the Scope of Individual Human Devastation in War: Life Writing’s Place in Mapping in the Classroom
Katherine Roseau and Kristen Bailey
5. Teaching, Trauma, Writing: The Truth’s Superb Surprise
Tanis MacDonald
6. Care-Filled Classrooms: Heart(Art)Full Life Writing Pedagogy
Gina Snooks
Part III—Teaching Life Writing Forum: Mediations
7. Interview Mediations in the Classroom
Rebecca Roach
8. Translation as/and Mediation: Teaching Life Writing in the Foreign Literature Classroom
Maria Rita Drumond Viana
9. Getting Emotional, Getting Personal. Writing Autobiographically about Teaching Life Writing in Times of Crisis
Aneta Ostaszewska
10. On Teaching Life Writing for (Not) Knowing
Vicki S. Hallett
Part IV—Teaching Life Writing Forum: Practices
11. Living Archives, Living Story: Questions of Ethics, Responsibility, and Sharing
Beth Yahp
12. (Life) Writing to Belong: Teaching and Learning on Camera during a Pandemic
Lisa Ortiz-Vilarelle
13. Designing an Accessible Virtual Classroom: Cripping the Syllabus
Adan Jerreat-Poole
14. The Art of Life Storytelling: Sharing and Exchanging Moments of Ambition in Summer Bridge Programs
Leila Moayeri Pazargadi
Afterword: History and Hopes—Life writing Pedagogy in the twenty-first Century
Craig Howes
Biography
Orly Lael Netzer is Assistant Professor (teaching stream) at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. She is scholar of autobiography, cultural, and memory studies. Her research explores the ways that audiences are invited to bear witness to difficult knowledge in autobiographical literature and art to better understand how relations between communities are shaped by the ways we listen and respond to each other’s stories of protest.
Amanda Spallacci is Lecturer in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, where she received her PhD (‘21). Her research publications centre on survivor/victim representations of sexual assault across various media, including memoir, television, film, and social media, that she critically engages with through frameworks including but not limited to memory studies, affect theory, trauma theory, and feminist print culture studies. Her most recent work is a forthcoming edited book collection on digital memory cultures in Canada (2024).
