A Case Study on Self-Understanding Writing through the “Writing a Page of Autobiography” Class

This study explores how university writing education can foster students’ self-understanding and reflection amid rapid technological and social change. To this end, it proposes the “One-Page Autobiography Writing” model, which employs literature and music as mediating texts and adopts empathy and distancing as its core principles. The class progresses through three stages: recognizing the present self, encountering others’ stories, and writing a one-page autobiography. The results revealed four types of self-understanding among students: (1) distancing from fixed self-frames, (2) recognizing and embracing multiple selves, (3) reinterpreting failure and loss, and (4) reflecting on the self through external texts. Through interaction with literature and music, students reinterpreted their past selves from the perspective of the present self, thereby deepening their self-understanding. This study demonstrates that applying the principles of empathy and distancing allows literature and music to serve as effective mediators for self-understanding, confirming that “One-Page Autobiography Writing” functions as an effective pedagogical approach for fostering self-reflective writing in higher education.