Assignment

Autoethnography

Students treat their own reading and writing habits as data. They record a session, transcribe it the way Sondra Perl did, code what recurs, and report what they found.

PersonalResearch

Process: Directed draftingFirst draft

Length
800–1,000+ words as an opening project; 1,800 as a capstone
Modes
Language
Done
Individually
Citation
Primary data and outside sources must be visibly distinguished

The full title on the sheet is “A Study of Your Own Meaning-Making Practices.” It’s in four of my five pathways. It starts from the idea that students already have a reading and writing process, whether or not they’ve ever looked at it, and that their process is worth studying the way Perl studied her subjects. Low stakes for being right; high stakes for self-awareness.

The method

  1. Collect data. Annotations and highlights, double-entry reflections, reflections written before and after reading, drafts, and the habits students bring from their other courses.
  2. Record one full session of reading or writing: video, audio, or written notes.
  3. Transcribe it, including the silences, as Perl did.
  4. Code it lightly. Name the actions that keep coming back.
  5. Write up the findings. Students title the paper, put their name on it, and imagine it appearing in an undergraduate writing journal.

Questions I give students while they collect data:

Do you remember what you did physically as you completed these drafts, notes, pieces? How long did they take? What were the circumstances around your space while completing them? Were there any particular successes or struggles?

Three ways I’ve used it

As the opening project. In a 15-week first-year course it’s at least 1,000 words: draft in Week 4, revision in Week 5. In an 8-week session it shrinks to an 800-word paper, drafted by the end of Week 2. The next project is a group piece in which students compare their autoethnographies, so this data gets used twice.

Online. The data are the weekly reading reflections students have already turned in, and the paper has to address reading and writing in an online course. Citation accuracy isn’t graded, but students still have to separate their own words from others’.

As the capstone. In first-year writing II it comes last, at 1,800 words, after a personal essay, a multimodal self-portrait, and a round of scholarly discussion posts. By then it reads as a research method the students have earned, not a warm-up. Draft in Week 14; revision at the final exam slot.

Readings

  • Sondra Perl, "Understanding Composing" (1980)
  • Sondra Perl, "The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers" (1979)
  • Vivian Zamel, "Writing One's Way into Reading," TESOL Quarterly 26.3 (1992)
  • Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, "Autoethnography" sample assignment, Writing About Writing, 5th ed., pp. 243–246
  • For the capstone version: Vershawn Ashanti Young, Rusty Barrett, Deborah Brandt, Nancy Sommers, and Richard L. Larson

Part of

Where I've used it

  • First-year writing I · 15 weeks, in person · Fall 2026
  • First-year writing I · 15 weeks, online · Spring 2026
  • College writing workshop · 8 weeks · Fall 2026
  • College writing workshop II · 8 weeks, asynchronous · Spring 2026
  • First-year writing II · 15 weeks, in person · Spring 2026 (as the capstone)

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