Most students avoid the reflective nature the writing process requires. Their resistance to meta-cognition, thinking about one's thinking, often means they are incapable of capitalizing on their strengths or improving upon their weaknesses. The author believes students who are familiar with writers' lives and habits will be that much more…

In this article, the author explores what a sense of place is and how various authors convey that in their work. She states that writers imbue their work with a sense of place through longing and distance from that place, distilled through imagination. "Could Harper Lee have created Maycomb, Alabama on the page without leaving the South and…