Dive Brief:
- The Common Core State Standards demand more informative and argumentative writing opportunities, leaving teachers to wonder where the personal narrative belongs in modern writing classrooms, according to a report from Education Week.
- Personal narrative had seen a rise in popularity in the years leading up to the development of the Common Core as a way to help students understand the world through a lens of their own experience, but some educators questioned whether it was analytically rigorous enough.
- While the right balance may be hard to strike, a balance is preferred — students should be asked to write evidence-based pieces along with personal narratives, perhaps by giving them even more writing assignments overall.
Dive Insight:
Schools may have gone overboard in asking students to find meaning in their own experiences before the Common Core forced a self-analysis, but one place the practice with writing personal narratives certainly helped students was in forcing them to reflect on their lives ahead of the college application process. Many colleges require some type of personal narrative, as do graduate school programs.
Students certainly need to learn the analytical skills necessary to conduct research and compose an evidence-based essay, but schools should still keep some element of personal narrative in writing instruction. After all, part of the push in the Common Core was integrating reading and writing into all subjects. If students get a range of analytical writing assignments in subjects outside of the English department, they should have time to explore narrative at some point in their high school careers.