Your Life in a Snapshot: Writing the Memoir

mem⋅oir –noun
1. a record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation.
2. Usually,
a. an account of one's personal life and experiences; autobiography.
b. the published record of the proceedings of a group or organization, as of a learned society.
3. a biography or biographical sketch.

ad⋅o⋅les⋅cence –noun
1. the transitional period between puberty and adulthood in human development, extending mainly over the teen years and terminating legally when the age of maturity is reached; youth.
2. the process or state of growing to maturity.
3. a period or stage of development, as of a society, preceding maturity.

Bros:

Throughout the course of the first semester, we have discussed the importance of memory in writing. It is a function that allows us to make meaning of our experiences, which essentially define who we become not only as writers, but specifically as story-tellers. Even in the context of formal essay or academic writing, there is a story to share.

Eudora Welty's memoir, One Writer's Beginnings, reads like a series of photographic snapshots. This makes sense, considering she was a photographer at one point in her life. Indeed her memoir is a composite whole of many parts, bits and pieces of her life taken together to form a seamless autobiography.

Taking a tip from Welty and a professor I had in grad school, Dr. Richard Wertime,for a course on the adolescent experience in American and British literature, I would like you to write a brief memoir--a minimum of three pages / maximum of five--in which you capture a decisive or transformative adolescent experience that "you" have had. The experience can be a positive or a negative one, or some mixture of both--there's no limit on how extreme the experience you depict might be.

This effort should be:
a. written in first-person singular voice
b. drawn from your own personal experience
c. as realistic and true to the way the event happened as humanly possible


Please give me a typed hard copy in the following format:
12 pt. Georgia font
Double Spaced
1" margins all around
Header (aligned right) with last name and page number

Please format your front page with the proper heading:
Your Name
My Name
Eng 165 / Writing the Essay
Date Due

Please include a creative title, centered directly below your header

The assignment is due in my mailbox on Thursday, January 15, 2009. No exceptions for late submissions. You will receive a zero.

This assignment will be out of 100 pts. I will use the typical rubric, which includes a total of 20 pts. for each area of critique: Meaning, Development, Organization, Language, Mechanics.

Any questions, please feel free to axe.

Love,
Brother Robert K. Peach, FSC

An Essay in Pictures: Making Meaning of Image

In her aptly title chapter, “Imagery,” renowned American poet, Mary Oliver, does well to explain figurative language, enlightening her readers with examples of metaphor, personification, allusion, and images found in poems from the likes of Elizabeth Bishop, Walt Whitman, and more. Oliver pays close attention to the idea of the image itself, that thing which becomes the centerpiece of a poem or some other piece of literature, opening up a window of opportunity for the writer to describe in full detail what lies before him in the natural world or in the world of his imagination. With some conscious consideration for detail, the writer’s world becomes an essay.

That said, I would like you to choose one video from those listed below, which are included in the presentation given in class, and interpret them in an essay of at least three paragraphs.

Son Lux's "Break": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUSBXsd8NkQ

El-P's "Stepfather Factory": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acgr18qpcPM

Talkdemonic's "Duality of Deathening": http://www.talkdemonic.com/new%20video.html

Aesop Rock's "None Shall Pass": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1u43KDiWD0

Mike Finnegan's "i1100": http://www.blackwingsdesign.com/folio/art_3.htm

Radiohead's "All I Need" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdrCalO5BDs

Ross Ching's "Eclectic": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwlkFRtOxMI&feature=related

Ross Ching's "Eclectic 2.0": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izXpNLjgAtM


The images in the video you choose should hopefully inspire in you a sense of metaphor. The question you should ask yourselves as you view the video of your choosing is: What do the images flooding my mind from the video represent?

And so the directions are as follows:

• Watch the video. Listen to the music.
  
• Pay close attention to the details of the images presented in the video and the music that is interfused with those images, lyrics included (if the song has lyrics).
  
• Jot down as you view the film your basic impressions of the images and the music. What mood does it create? What emotions are expressed through the interfusion of music and image?
  
• Once you (we) are finished viewing the video, write an interpretive essay in which you explain the deeper meaning of the video, giving a analysis/synopsis of its images, and an explanation of the various lyrics, if there are any. Be sure to describe the music you hear as well.

This is assignment is due on the blog or hard copy by Thursday, December 18, 2008.