Memoir (First Draft due Wednesday 9/19)

Great work today on the "I am from . . ." poems! (And particular thanks to Hannah and Romeo for reading theirs aloud in class.) Please save the poems for your portfolio.

Here's the memoir assignment for Wednesday:

Identify an event from your experience that you consider “life-changing.” It doesn’t matter whether the experience was funny, sad, embarrassing, infuriating, enlightening, profound, joyous, or silly. What matters is that it was significant to you in some way, and that it represents a turning point—as a result of that experience, something in you changed.

Revisit the experience in your imagination. Make notes about the sensory details you can recall. (Where were you? What specific sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and textures were part of the experience? What were some of the words spoken? etc.)

Freewrite a description your life-changing experience, including as many specific sensory details as possible to illustrate what happened.

Read what you’ve written and circle, underline, or otherwise mark the ideas that are most compelling, the examples that are most vivid, the word choices you like, the ideas you would like to expand on.

Using your freewrite as the basis, write a short personal narrative (1½ - 2 pages) describing your life-changing experience. Try to make your reader feel the way you do about the experience without telling your reader how to feel.

Read what you’ve written and evaluate:
· Does your narrative evoke the essence of the experience?
· Are your word choices vivid?
· Have you made use of telling sensory details?

Revise as needed.

Save a copy of the paper on your computer, and print a copy to bring to class. (Your paper should be double-spaced, with one-inch margins. At the top of the page, please include your name, the date, “Seattle Arts Ecology,” and “Memoir, First Draft.”)