Students often see little connection between their school lives and the lives they lead outside of school. Thesis-driven essays often further this disconnection by emphasizing form over content and by depersonalizing the relationship between writer and audience. By inviting students to mine their personal experiences, teachers can help students not only understand literature better, but also begin to make story-sense out of their own lives.

All writing (and all reading) is ultimately autobiographical. In This Time It’s Personal, John S. O'Connor encourages us to care as deeply about the texts of our students’ personal lives as we do the lives of literary characters and the subject matter we teach in all classes. Rather than allow students to view school passively, as mere consumers of other people’s stories, we need to explicitly invite students into the larger community of storytellers.

This book features a diverse range of creative nonfiction writing assignments with authentic audiences - including writer’s autobiography; writing about place; memoirs; op-ed essays; blogs; oral histories - and many vibrant examples of student writing.