On Seeing England for the First Time

How does reading the rest of Jamaica Kincaid's personal essay "On Seeing England for the First Time" affect your understanding of her attitude toward England? You may write informally but not unintelligently. Express analytical ideas about specific details and rhetorical strategies.

Gessner and Hopper

Extend the discussions we have had about David Gessner's "Benediction" and Kate Hopper's "Becoming a Sanvicenteña".

Make particular, precise observations and discuss the significance of those observations.
Use your annotations.

Comment on each by class time on Wednesday, October 19.

A Concise Personal Essay

Here’s your second personal narrative assignment. (The first assignment was to write six six-word personal narratives about a significant relationship.)

Write a concise personal essay (750 words or fewer) about a significant relationship in your life. In writing your essay consider the literary elements that we have investigated. 

We discussed these extensively in class on Friday. Use the class readings--All Souls by Michael Patrick MacDonald, "Old Father, Old Artificer" from Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, "Benediction" by David Gessner, "Being a Sanvicenteña: Five Stages" by Kate Hopper--as models. For more examples of concise creative nonfiction go to Brevity.

Turn in a final-for-now draft on Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Six-Word Personal Essay (& More)

This week after reading, annotating, and discussing a chapter, "Old Father, Old Artificer," from Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir Fun Home you each wrote down particular memories about a particular relationship in your own life. Then we arranged those memories two different ways: chronologically and in another manner of your choice. I told you that next week we'll be using these memories to write two personal essays, each of which will be fewer than 750-words. I told you that personal essays consist of vivid, suggestive storytelling and thoughtful, insightful reflection. Then we dug back into Bechdel's graphic memoir for examples of both. I then said we'd deal with the personal essay assignment more deeply next week but that you could get started.

Because it's difficult to compress our memories into so few words we're going to practice concision by writing six six-word memoirs. Choose six memories (or scenes) from your brainstorm. Turn each of the six memories into a six-word mini-personal experience essay about that memory. Due Monday (either typed or neatly handwritten).

Example: Let's say I want to write about my relationship with my first AP English Language and Composition class. Now let's say I choose, as one of my memories, Friday's class. I might write: Note to self: Manage time better.

Here are five more six-word compositions about my relationship with AP English Language:
My Southie memories are not MacDonald's.
Spent summer thinking about food, ecosystems.
I want to write like Galeano.
Barack Obama's mantra: "Pass this bill."
Webs. Soap. Stones. Triangles. Child labor. 

Below you'll find links to more examples of six-word memoirs.

Six-Word Memoirs at Smith Magazine

Six-Word Teen Memoirs at Smith Magazine

Six-Word Memoirs from Not Quite What I Was Planning (scroll down for examples)

Six-Word Memoirs at National Public Radio (with art!)

Have fun. Be inventive. Be introspective. Be insightful. Be clever. Avoid being boring.

"Old Father, Old Artificer" from *Fun Home* by Alison Bechdel

Extend. Explore. Examine. Respond. Revisit. Revise. Analyze. Synthesize. Write.
(Focus particularly on specific scenes, panels, or techniques that we didn't talk about but that relate to things we did talk about. Or, focus on new (or revised) ways of thinking about specific scenes, panels, or techniques that we've already talked about.)

(Image from womensmemoirs.com.)