This thesis portrays an attempt to write and learn from the whole of life within and through the framework of a thesis. Written in the place- and space-times of three years it both questions and searches for the meaning of curriculum as the "running of the course," the purpose and methods and frameworks by which I live and write. Part of an ongoing personal journey to understand inclusion, the thesis begins with an understanding that change towards a more inclusive world involves change in my self, and the desire and intent to practice a different way of knowing my own interrelatedness with others and world. Both the content and form of the thesis explore the main themes of relationship and expression; how the hidden and unwritten parts of past, of self, of other, belong in the present and can be brought to birth. It is presented as a layered portrait showing the many forms through which I come to understand and articulate the world over time. My own words—poetry, autobiographical pieces, journal entries, letters, and interpretive pieces-are the means to bringing lost themes in my life to meaning on the pages of a thesis. But writing and life are more than self-expression. Through the words and presence of others, through living with and reading and responding to the other, I learn a more meaningful course of action. Writing and living in relation to others as woman, graduate student, teacher, family member and immigrant, I come to an understanding of my self and my place with others in the world as one of responsibility and response. In writing the meaning of my curriculum I also write possible meanings for education. Through mindful presence a teacher can look below the surface to see the worth of another, and give a response that will birth and nurture a curriculum waiting to be born. Writing personal experience in the framework of a thesis, while problematic throughout, in the end I found necessary to bring outside to inside, objectivity to subjectivity, interpretation to art, and tentative, uncertain conclusion to radical questioning. In the very end I find silence. The mystery of the unknowable, the eloquence of the inexpressible in its presence. Yet always the longing, the reaching, to understand and give voice. And so I sit at the side of the river writing, leaf by leaf, layer by layer, the roots of curriculum. / xi, 126 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm.