CALL FOR PAPERS
(Proposal deadline extended to July 1, 2013)

Telling Stories: Personal Narrative in Writing Instruction
Editors: Duncan Koerber (York University); Robert G. Price (University of Toronto)

We are now accepting paper proposals for an edited collection that will bring together the latest research on the use of personal narrative writing in the classroom.

In writing personal narratives, students tell stories about their own lived experiences while working on grammar and style. Personal narrative assignments have grown in popularity as a means to improve students’ writing skills and also to help students understand the fundamentals of academic disciplines. This book will explore how personal narrative belongs, and makes good pedagogical sense, in college and university classes.

We will gladly accept proposals from instructors of writing and composition courses. Additionally, we are quite interested in submissions from instructors who are using personal narrative in disciplines that do not have a tradition of using personal narrative writing (examples include biology, chemistry, physics, math, business, sociology, psychology, political science). Looking broadly, the collection will reveal the wide suitability of this written form, and it will help us understand the varied ways instructors have employed personal narrative writing in their disciplines.

Solely theoretical submissions will be considered; however, preference will be given to papers that present quantitative and/or qualitative research projects such as surveys, ethnographies, experiments, case studies, rhetorical analysis, discourse analysis, content analysis and so on. Nonetheless, proposals must connect research projects with current theoretical conversations in writing and composition pedagogy.

Please circulate this call to your colleagues, particularly those working in the disciplines listed above.

Submit your 500-word proposal and CV to Duncan Koerber (dkoerber@yorku.ca) by the extended deadline of July 1, 2013. We will notify contributors by July 15, 2013. Final drafts of 6000 to 8000 words will be due by December 15, 2013.