Memoir Assignment

ENG 103

Paper #1

Genre: Memoir

 

Purpose: This paper gives you an opportunity to tell who you are. Deciding how and why you make rhetorical choices is another purpose of this paper. Since this will be your first formal college paper, I intentionally chose the topic so that the content is easy: you are writing a paper about yourself.

 

Assignment: Write an organized, logical, college-level narrative essay about who you are and how you came to discover or decide your identity.

Remember that a narrative is a story, and stories are usually more interesting and engaging when they contain details that draw the reader into the story. You might give details about sensory experiences (sound, color, texture). You might give details about how something made you feel (exhilarated, angry, bored). The more specific you can be in your descriptions, the better your narrative will be.

Here are some questions to help you get started brainstorming:

When you think about who you are, what do you see in your mind’s eye? Was there an event or a series of events that led you to understanding yourself better? What happened and how did you process that understanding? Has it changed? Do other people accept you for who you are? If so, how do they show that acceptance? If not, how do they show that they are unaccepting of your identity? Has your identity changed? Is it changing currently? What factors (experiences or people) have influenced your identity development?

 

Please remember that we will have a session of peer review for this assignment. Make sure that you are comfortable with whatever you decide to write about for the assignment. If you do not want your essay shared with your classmates during peer review, you must inform me at least two days prior to the peer review in class.

 

Due dates: The rough draft for peer review and the final draft for submission will be due according to the most recent course calendar on the course website.

 

If you do not bring your rough draft for peer review, I will deduct 10 points from the final paper grade.

 

Format: Use MLA format for your submission.

 

This assignment accounts for 10% of your final course grade. If you have any questions or need any help with this assignment, please let me know as soon as possible.

 

 

 

 

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