Please post your rough draft of your Memoir here. Your rough draft should be att
Please post your rough draft of your Memoir here. Your rough draft should be attached to your post as either a Microsoft Word document or as a PDF.
This draft should be a complete draft (1200-1500 words) to ensure that you will as much valuable feedback as possible from your classmates. Keep in mind that I will not be commenting on your drafts. Instead this is your opportunity to share your ideas, strategies, and content with one another in an effort to not only write better essays, but also to help build a sense of community in our classroom.
If you have specific questions about your rough draft, or if you need help with a certain section of your essay, please let me know via email or schedule a conference. I am happy to help!
Instructions:
There are several ways to focus your memoir. You can choose to focus on a memory, a person, an event, a time of transition, or anything else that appeals to you. But this memoir should be more of a snapshot than a life story. I don’t want to know about everything that has ever happened to you up to this point. I want you to choose some piece of your life that is meaningful and write about it in great detail and description. Remember that no matter how you frame your memoir, you should be the main character in this essay.
Using the pieces by Gay, Cisneros, and Shteyngart linked to in our course text as models, draw on personal or community/family memories and artifacts to recreate a specific time, moment, and place through narration and description. Be sure to incorporate a conflict and resolution as well as a bottom line to your essay—a lesson learned or a moral to your story.
That being said, I encourage you to think of topics that are linked to current events in our country and your experience with them. You may wish to use this as an opportunity to reflect on your experiences and create a narrative about topics like:
COVID-19/Quarantine
Police brutality
The Black Lives Matter movement
Recent protests related to social justice and systemic racism
The Supreme Court’s ruling on DACA
The Supreme Court’s ruling to protect LGBTQ+ employees
You do not have to choose one of these topics—your memoir topic can be on just about any topic you wish as long as it is appropriate for the classroom (remember this will be shared with and reviewed by your peers). I have had many students write successful memoirs about childhood memories, their first day of college, moving into the dorms, a study abroad experience, or other memorable times with friends and family. Just remember that your memoir must have a plot, characters, conflict, and theme. It must also contain rich descriptive paragraphs and a clear lesson learned. Why was this such an important part of your life?
In your memoir, you are expected to:
Choose a topic that is appropriate for academic memoir writing (remember that you will be sharing this with the entire class)
Create a clear and cohesive plot with characters and a conflict that is overcome by your main character (you!)
Use sharp details and vivid description (use all five senses when possible)
Use Gay’s, Cisneros’, or Shteyngart’s pieces as a lens through which to write your own memoir
Use your memoir to demonstrate a good understanding of this new writing situation
Avoid clichés and stilted sentence structures and phrasing
Use proper grammar, proofread closely, and polish your writing
Create a strong, cohesive, and clear piece of writing
Incorporate a lesson learned or moral to your story (theme)
Other Guidelines:
Your memoir should be 1250-1500 words long (not including the title page or references page)
It should be in Times New Roman, 12-point font, double spaced
Please use APA or MLA formatting guidelines for your memoir
If you use outside sources in your memoir, please use in-text citations and a reference or works cited page. However, no references are required.