For each of the units in my freshman writing class, I try to define a core question. For our unit on “The Body� (Chapter 4, “Embodying Identity�), the question is a rather obvious but extremely critical one: what is the relationship between body and self-identity, between who we are and how we appear physically to the world? At the beginning of the unit, students speak rather glibly about the gap between our physical selves and “who we really are�; it doesn’t matter how you look, they say, since it’s what you are on the inside that counts. Although this is true in so many important respects, I encourage students not to ignore the complications of our body/soul duality; while the content of our hearts and minds and souls matter most, we meet the world and the world meets us through and with our bodies. I ask students to consider all the situations in which what is on the inside does not “count� as it should and with what consequences. How can we negotiate that land-mined terrain between how others see us with their eyes and how they see us as people, that is, make judgments about who we are? Whether we speak about it or not, all of us are aware that we are judged by our appearance. And we are often our own harshest critics when it comes to our looks. This is trebly true for college students who, even in a community college such as ours, fall primarily between the ages of 18-25. Although some students are reluctant to speak directly about specific insecurities they may have regarding their appearance, they address their particular concerns through discussions of the rich variety of written and visual texts we explore together. Even if silent in class, many give voice to powerful, often deeply painful body-related experiences in the reading responses, freewrites, and formal essays that they submit to me. Throughout our body unit, I call students’ attention to the distinction between the stories that our bodies overtly tell about us –for example, our age, gender, race, and so forth—and the stories that we ourselves choose to tell through our bodies –through clothing and hairstyle, through body piercings, tattoos, cosmetic surgery, etc. Then there are the stories we half “tell� about ourselves through our bodies, the physical manifestations of mental or emotional distress (for example, signs of alcohol and drug addiction; being excessively under- or overweight) and of bodily illness. We try to pin down together what others do know, what they think they know, and what they can never know about us through our bodies. We make distinctions between justifiable and unjustifiable or false assumptions about us based on our appearance. Clearly, our non-physical identity is, to some extent, shaped by our physical identity since other people’s reactions to our appearance have emotional, psychological, and mental effects on us. Part of our sense of who we are, part of who we end up being, is determined by what judgment on our looks is reflected back to us from the world. And this judgment often fluctuates throughout our lives. Judith Ortiz Cofer addresses some of these issues head-on in her rich essay, “The Story of My Body.� She divides her essay up into separate categories or “chapters�: skin, color, size, looks. Cofer’s essay wonderfully illustrates the fluctuations in the valuing –by others and ourselves--of physical aspects of ourselves. In Puerto Rico, she was “a white girl� while in the United States she “became a brown girl�; she considered herself “a pretty girl� until she discovered that according to the hierarchy of her high school, Puerto Rican girls were low on the beauty list. I ask my students to consider what categories or chapters they would come up with in writing their own body autobiographies. We put some of them on the board: separate parts of their bodies; different ages, and so forth. At home, all students write one “chapter� of their body story and share it in groups. I then include “The Story of My Body� as a topic choice for the formal essay that completes the unit: Using Judith Ortiz Cofer’s essay “The Story of My Body� as a model as well as for support, write a carefully-constructed story of your own body. Avoid over-generalizing; include specific examples, and bring genuine reflection and analysis into your account. You do not have to use Cofer’s categories; feel free to develop your own depending on what story about your body you want to tell. This topic produces rich, often moving, often funny essays. Students are very creative in the ways that they structure their material. One student wrote a lively essay about clothing her body from adolescence through to young womanhood (from “Padded Bras� to “Jeans, Chapstick, and Ponytail�). Another tracked his own and others’ responses to his height at different periods. One student talked about how she was seen –and saw herself—as she moved with her family from one country to another. All of the bodies we had “seen� together in the unit helped the students to be brave and bold in telling their own stories. However, I am always careful to include topic choices that allow students to avoid sensitive or painful material. Students are never coerced into sharing any stories that they are not yet ready to tell.