Archive: Expressive Writing

The purpose of this blog is to summarize articles on teaching English/language arts, from kindergarten through college, published in English education journals from the past.

Topic: Expressive (Narrative?) Writing

Title: “The Role of Expressive Discourse in the Teaching of writing: A Review of Current Composition Texts.” Jeanette Harris. Freshman English News 15. 3 (1986): 2-4. Reviewed in College Composition and Communication (October 1988), 330. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary: “Claims that expressive writing is unsatisfactorily defined in the literature and even questions the existence of such a category.”

Comments: I’m assuming that “expressive writing” is personal narrative writing. In my experience at a community college, having students write a personal narrative often resulted in their writing about experiences that embarrassed them, so I strictly controlled those topics to avoid embarrassment. Practicing narrative writing, however, has a practical value. Portions, sometimes major portions, of the writing in expository or academic formats is narrative. Rays.