Furthermore, these subjective epistemological positions present students with challenges to learning and to adequate self-care that may place them at higher risk for further victimization in the school setting. According to Belenky et al. (1986), Received Knowers listen too much to others and depend so heavily upon others’ authority that they may be taken advantage of or may feel themselves betrayed by shortcomings of those they consider authorities. For example, composition instructors of first year college students frequently assign the memoir as the first paper because, as Patricia Sullivan (2003) explains, “the personal essay locates students in a topic and form that is familiar to them, that they have a decided interest and stake in, [and] that they can write about with a sense of authority” (p. 43). Received Knowers may choose to write about a traumatic interpersonal event, such as the death of a close relative or leaving an abusive spouse—indeed their most memorable event. However, Received Knowers in first-year composition do not understand the complexity of writing well about a traumatic event, especially the complexities imposed by their own bodies discussed later in this essay, nor may they yet have established significance for the traumatic event. Thus, when they fail to write well even after several drafts: when their writing is full of nonspecific language, short on demonstrating significance, and—heaven forbid—rife with structural and grammatical error, Received Knowers can feel tricked into demonstrating their failures both as writers and as persons—and judge they have been made victims once again.