Kelsi Long

Dr. Cook

English 3580

February 20, 2017

Annotated Bibliography- First 3 entries: Narrative Writing

Batchelor, Katherine E., and April King. "Freshmen And Five Hundred Words." Journal Of

Adolescent & Adult Literacy 58.2 (2014): 111-121. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15

Feb. 2017. KML

After a ninth grade English teacher noticed, year after year, her students apprehension

toward writing, more specifically, toward page lengths, she sought a solution: flash fiction (aka

the short short story). This concise writing style (500-750 words) gave students freedom to make

topical risks, making the writing short, but deep. While an excellent idea to bring into the writing

classroom, could too much of this short writing style impede students abilities to write longer

works that will be required of them at the college level, such as research papers or essays? I do

not think so. In my opinion it is a great method to employ with ninth grade writers. If I did this

with my class, I might team up with other English teachers in the school and make a school-wide

anthology of flash fiction to publish and share online, rather than just the suggested class-wide

anthology. This way a sense of community is built throughout the entire school and they all grow

as writers together.

Behizade, Nadia. "Xavier's Take On Authentic Writing." Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy

58.4 (2014): 289-298. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15 Feb. 2017. KML

This article, based on an interview with an 8th grade student, discusses student choice of
topic, writing for impact, and expression as necessary elements for authentic writing. The article

states that, due to high-stakes writing tests, there is now more writing going on in classrooms

than ever before. However, it is often stale, bland, and unenjoyable writing for students. While

standardized writing tests often result in what students perceive as unauthentic writing, if we got

rid of high-stakes writing tests completely, would there gradually be less writing taking place in

the classroom altogether? How do we find middle ground? I would apply this information to my

classroom by doing as the article suggests and meet with students- either one on one or in small

groups- prior to writing assignments and ask for their feedback as to what some authentic and

enjoyable writing topics they would like to see in the classroom. What things interest them?

What are they passionate about? In the case of narrative writing, they can use those interests and

passions to develop great work to share with others in a manner that feels authentic to them.

Johnson, Elisabeth. "Reconceptualizing Vulnerability In Personal Narrative Writing With

Youths." Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 57.7 (2014): 575-583. Academic Search

Complete. Web. 19 Feb. 2017. KML

This article tells the story of one teachers journey to get her students to write more

vulnerably and share their intimate personal experiences in their personal narrative writings. She

allowed them to tell their own stories or others, after interviewing them on subjects such as drug

abuse, sex, etc. However, what Ms. Phagan found was that it is difficult to figure out where to

draw the line in vulnerability in academic writing. In order to protect students, herself, and their

school from scrutiny when the collected works were published, she found herself encouraging

some students to reedit their work to conceal their or their familys identities. One student, after

being asked to conceal the identity of her grandmother in her paper remarked, this is bullshit

(Johnson). This article challenges educators to ask themselves tough questions. Can academic
writing ever be 100% completely vulnerable? Probably not. What students dont already censor

themselves in personal narrative writing, sometimes has to be requested to be edited by teachers

in order to protect them and their student. However, it is important for teachers to work toward

getting their students to open up more in their personal narrative writing, and Ms. Phagans idea

of students interviewing one another, or family members, or people in the community, about

topics that are not generally openly discussed. To apply this in the classroom, I would start with

asking students to choose a topic and interview someone on that topic, or speak from their own

experiences on that topic. Additionally, I would give them guidelines to help protect them, such

as leaving out the real names of whomever they are writing about.