Writing from the Personal

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Getting Started

Make a timeline that features 12-16 important events from your life. This can be anything from the day you found out Santa Claus was fake (sorry…) to the day you won a gymnastics competition to the day your father died to infinity. Anything that has happened to you that changed the path of your life or the way you looked at life. Try not to pick simple, obvious things like "May 11th, 2001: I graduated from high school." If that is a significant event in your life, great, include it, but try to dig deeper. The timeline will help you in the drafting of your first paper (due _________, so the more you do, the better.

Once you have finished your timeline:

Pick 3-4 of the events on your timeline and write a few paragraphs about them. What makes them important enough to be on your timeline? What happened? What impact did they have on your life? How would your life be different if those things hadn't happened? Come to class on ______ with both your timeline and the 2-3 pages you have written.

Unit 1 Essay Assignment
This essay unit is all about something you should know a lot about--your life. To write this essay, you will explore different aspects of an important experience to find out what it says about you. Pick an experience that is significant in your life (it can be anything!), and write about the who, what, where, when, and how of it. Don't forget the why, because this is point at which you will be writing about what the experience says about you. How has the experience changed you and your life?

As you're writing, consider who your audience is. Who would be interested in learning more about you? Of the people who already know you, who would be interested in reading this? Anyone else? Fee free to list your audience as the members of our class, who probably don't know very much about you yet.

Reading Assignments for ________________
Read 2 of these 3 essays from The Mercury Reader (MR):
· The Library Card (pgs. _______)
· On Dumpster Diving (pgs. ________)
· So This Was Adolescence (pgs. ________)
After you read, write a reading response. Your reading response should include one paragraph of summary about each essay. Make sure you address what you thinkthe authors of the essays felt and learned.

In 1-2 more paragraphs write a response to the essays. What connections can you make between the essays you read? If you're having trouble getting started with your response, here are some questions to think about:

• What was the author's point, and do you agree with it? Why or why not?
• What was the most important thing/point in the article? Why?
• How did the reading make you feel? Why?
• What did the author forget to write about? How would you expand the article?
• How have things changed since the article was written?
• If you could ask one question of the author, what would it be? Why?
• Where do you stand on the issue presented in the article? Why? Has this article changed the way you think about the issue? Why or why not?
• How could this reading inspire you and one of your writing projects? What ideas does it bring up for you?
• Have you experienced something similar to what the author wrote about? How is the essay related to your life?

Also for Tuesday:
Read the personal narrative you were assigned by group. Answer the question that corresponds to your narrative on page (33--page number may have changed). You will be discussing your answers as a group in class, but you need to have a printed version to hand in to me.

Writer's Memo

• Throughout the semester we will be doing quite a lot of peer response in class. Peer responses are the comments and suggestions a person has for you after reading your paper or work. While I strongly encourage you to make comments and suggestions in the margins of your group members' papers, I am also asking you to write that person a writer's memo.
• A writer's memo includes anything and everything you have to say about a person's paper. What did you like? What needs work? Does the essay move you? The main point of a writer's memo is that you write 1-2 pages (double spaced) of comments that your partner can use to improve his or her work.
• A writer's memo does not include: negative statements such as "this essay stinks," or "You are not very good at writing." Try to be constructive both in your praise and in your criticism.
• Remember: peer response is only as good as you make it for others. If you don't put any effort into your response, you will more than likely not get any help from the responses you receive. Also remember that peer response is an important part of your portfolio grade: if you decide that doing peer response is a waste of your time and that you are not going to do it on a daily basis, you will have no chance of passing this course.

Reflection Questions

1. How did it feel to choose your own topic and style? Was it important to you to have the choice, or would you rather have been given an assignment? Why?

2. Do you think that the peer response activity that we did (writer's memo) helped you in completing this draft? Why or Why not? Would you rather make comments on the computer or by hand? Which do you prefer receiving?

3. What types of things did your peer responders recommend? Did you follow their instructions? Why or Why not?

4. If you had more time to work on this paper, how would change it? What would you add or subtract? Would you be willing to change your audience for this paper? (If you wrote a letter, would be willing to change it into a personal essay? If you wrote a research paper, would you be willing to change into a letter to a friend?)

5. What is the title of your essay? Why did you choose that title? How does your title reflect the content of your work? If you were to change the title of your essay or story, what would it be? Why?

6. Give yourself an advisory grade for this paper. Justify that grade by telling me what you have done along the way as far as brainstorming, revisions, etc. Why is the grade you've given yourself the right one?

7. What was easy about writing this essay? What was hard? Name two or more things for each question.

8. Finally, if you were to convert your paper into a short story, who would be the main character? What kinds of things does the character do or say? If you were reading this short story, would it be interesting to you? If not, do you feel like you could make it more interesting? How? (The purpose of this question is not to make you feel bad about your essay, but to help you see that the things you write can be translated and revised into many different things.)

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