Authoring Your Life

Who am I? What do I want in relationships? How do I know what to believe? How do I manage the stresses of living?This is a guide to addressing life’s challenges and competing demands. It will help you to reflect on the problems and setbacks you encounter to discover your own voice, uncover your authentic sense of values, build your confidence, and find meaning in your life. This is, however, far more than a self-help book; and it addresses multiple audiences.Because everyone’s circumstances differ, and life is unpredictable, this book does not offer simplistic solutions and steps to follow. Instead, Marcia Baxter Magolda immerses you in the stories of thirty-five adults whom she has followed and interviewed for over twenty years. With her guidance, and using the self-authorship framework she has developed, you will recognize in yourself many patterns and parallels from the protagonists’ stories of emotional and intellectual growth. By reflecting on these life stories, you will gain insights about your individual values and identity, and strengthen your sense of self-reliance to handle significant transitions and unexpected circumstances. In addition to helping you identify the phases of your journey to self-authorship, Marcia Baxter Magolda offers reflective exercises and questions to help you uncover your strengths and identify the barriers that may be inhibiting you from building the internal, psychological compass that will serve as the foundation for your journey. Offering advice on how to be “good company” for those who have set out on their journey to self-authorship, the book is also addressed to partners, family members, friends, teachers, mentors, and employers, so they can offer support to those that face these challenges.Finally, for scholars of adult development, this book offers the latest articulation of the developing theory of self-authorship.

Foreword -- Note to readers -- Introduction -- Challenges of adult life -- Dawn's story : bringing out the truth in a character -- Mark's story : developing a spiritual philosophy of life -- Kurt's story : being true to the man in the glass -- Sandra's story : living her faith -- Lydia's story : external chaos; internal stability -- Evan's story : being the best you can be -- How to be good company for your own journey -- Partnerships : how to provide good company for others' journeys toward self-authorship -- Diverse self-authorship stories -- Mapping your journey -- A theory of self-authorship development -- Longitudinal study methodology and methods -- Notes -- Index.

This book begins as an autobiography, the story of an incest survivor who became an English professor, but it ends with an argument: that we must reconceptualize the language arts curriculum, from grade school through graduate school, if we are to meet the needs of our students, an alarming number of whom are survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

First of all, this book is not about getting you high for a day or two. It is a self-discovery companion and planning guide, for teenagers, that will enable you to make a significant difference in your life. Based on Bob Urichucks internationally acclaimed and time-proven 12 Disciplines, Born To Excel will lead you to understand what success, attitude, motivation and that most important person YOUare all about. You will commit first to yourself and then to your dreams. As you read, think and write your way through these 12 essential and meaningful steps, or disciplines, you will literally author your own future stepby- step, and make your dreams a reality.

Reauthoring the World invites readers to a transformational way of being in the world. It translates the Narrative Therapy approach and practices for people outside the therapeutic context that are interested in shifting the stories of their own lives as well as the communities and organisations that they work in.

Drawing upon historicist and cultural studies approaches to literature, this book argues that the Romantic construction of the self emerged out of the growth of commercial print culture and the expansion and fragmentation of the reading public beginning in eighteenth-century Britain. Arguing for continuity between eighteenth-century literature and the rise of Romanticism, this groundbreaking book traces the influence of new print market conditions on the development of the Romantic poetic self.

Please explain why you think about and write history as you do? Collecting together the responses to this question from 15 of the world's foremost historians and theorists, Authoring the Past represents a powerful reflection on and intervention in the historiographical field. Edited by Alun Munslow and presented in concise digestible essays, the collection covers a broad range of contemporary interests and ideas and offers a rich set of reasoned alternative thoughts on our cultural engagement with times gone by. Emerging from an intensely fertile period of historical thought and practice, Authoring the Past examines the variety of approaches to the discipline that have taken shape during this time and suggests possible future ways of thinking about and interacting with the past. It provides a unique insight into recent debates on the nature and purpose of history and demonstrates that when diverse metaphysical and aesthetic choices are made, the nature of the representation of the past becomes a matter of legitimate dispute. Students, scholars and practitioners of history will find it a stimulating and invaluable resource.

This engaging and highly regarded book takes readers through the key stages of their PhD research journey, from the initial ideas through to successful completion and publication. It gives helpful guidance on forming research questions, organising ideas, pulling together a final draft, handling the viva and getting published. Each chapter contains a wealth of practical suggestions and tips for readers to try out and adapt to their own research needs and disciplinary style. This text will be essential reading for PhD students and their supervisors in humanities, arts, social sciences, business, law, health and related disciplines.