The Daily Bulletin Archive

All Buffalo State students, faculty, and staff are invited to attend a presentation by Nancy Sommers, author of the 2014 common reading, "I Stand Here Writing," at 3:00 p.m. Friday, October 10, the Performing Arts Center at Rockwell Hall. Tickets are free and available from the College Writing Program. Please call ext. 5451 to reserve a ticket for this event. A public reception for the author in the Rockwell Hall foyer will immediately following the presentation.

In her essay "I Stand Here Writing," Sommers endeavors to clear up the common misunderstanding
students have about personal writing and academic writing, pointing out that personal writing need not
be biographical and academic writing need not be impersonal or difficult to understand. Rather, she
argues, "Being personal means bringing their judgments and interpretations to bear on what they read
and write, learning that they never leave themselves behind even when they write academic essays." An
important essay on voice, ownership of text, and lived experience, "I Stand Here Writing" invites us all
to enter into academic discourse with our whole selves while using writing to discover who each of us is and might yet become.

Nancy Sommers has taught composition and directed composition programs for 30 years. She now teaches writing and mentors new writing teachers at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. She led Harvard’s Expository Writing Program for 20 years, directing the first-year writing program and establishing Harvard’s WAC program. A two-time Braddock Award winner, Sommers is well known for her research and publications on student writing. Her articles "Revision Strategies of Student and Experienced Writers" and "Responding to Student Writing" are two of the most widely read and anthologized articles in the field of composition. Her recent work involves a longitudinal study of college writing to understand the role writing plays in undergraduate education. Sommers is the lead author on the Hacker handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin’s, and is coauthor of Fields of Reading, ninth edition (2010).