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assignments ENGL513 READING & WRITING THE MEMOIR Your Final Draft

Need to be in touch with me? 
LEE TORDA
310 Tillinghast Hall
Bridgewater State University
508.531.2436
ltorda@bridgew.edu
www.leetorda.com
SUMMER 2014 Office Hours:
are by appointment.
In your final portfolio, you will turn in a final, polished version of the memoir you've been working on for the past five weeks. We've read book-length memoirs that have a great deal of space to tell their stories. In comparison, the challenge you face is to tell your story in a much shorter space. You've been writing around five to seven pages of material each week of class--including both the writer's notebook and in-class material. Somewhere in there is your memoir. Thus, your final draft might be anywhere between 15 and 25 pages in length. Please note that while your final piece might be longer than that, it shouldn't really be shorter. Further, if it is a lot longer than 25 pages, please do not expect that I will read with the same kind of care I would otherwise. Grades are due within two days of the end of this class. 

In the portfolio, I will ask for the final draft and any drafts previous to this one--including things that might have showed up in your writer's notebook or from in-class writing. I will consider where you started with this text and where you ended up as I read and evaluate. 


Beyond a rough page number and the suggestion that your memoir draw from what we've read and worked on and talked about in class, I'm not sure what help I can offer you as writers. This, of course, has never stopped me from trying. I think a successful memoir will do some of the following:
  • Your memoir will have strong, interesting, believable characters engaging in the stuff of life.
  • Your memoir will have a clear plot--a beginning, a middle, and an end.
  • Your memoir will artfully move between showing the important events to me and telling me, when you need to, why it is important. So a blend of story-telling and reflection. 
  • Your memoir will demonstrate how your story is really the story of us all. 
  • Your memoir will have your own strong, clear, voice--whatever that sounds like. 

Other things? You might play with metaphor (a la Refuge); you might play with form (a la Suck City). You might write a funny memoir or a breathless memoir or a straightforward memoir. You might struggle with big philosophical questions or small, precious ones. You might play around with quotations and white space. You might include research. You might do some nature writing. 

Whatever you do, tell your story true. That's the real trick. 
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  • Home
  • ENGL 303 policies
    • ENGL303 SYLLABUS
    • ENGL 303 Discussion Board Space
    • ENGL303 CLASS PROFILES
    • ENGL303 READING JOURNALS (assignment)
    • ENGL303 OVERVIEW FINAL HERITAGE PROJECT
    • ENGL303 NAMING WHAT WE KNOW
    • ENGL303 YOUR LIFE IN PICTURES
  • ENGL 226 policies
    • 226 Discussion Board
    • ENGL 226 syllabus
    • ENGL 226 PORTFOLIO
    • ENGL 226 PARTNER INTERVIEW MINI-PAPER
    • ENGL226 READING JOURNALS (assignment)
    • 226 BLOG INFORMATION
    • ENGL 226 Writing Studies Timeline Project
    • ENGL 226 Professional Writing Project
    • ENGL 226 SUPER FAST CAREER PRESENTATIONS
    • ENGL 226 Writing As Art
  • Previously Taught Classes
    • ENGL 301 >
      • ENGL 301 SYLLABUS >
        • PARTNER INTERVIEW ENGL 301
      • ENGL 301 Discussion Board When We Need it
      • ENGL 301 PORTFOLIOS
      • ENGL 301 READING JOURNALS (assignment)
      • ENGL 301 INTERVIEW WITH A TEACHER (assignment)
      • ENGL 301 BOOK CLUB (assignment)
      • ENGL 301 FLASH MENTOR TEXT MEMOIR (assignment)
      • ENGL 301 RESEARCH IN TEACHING DIVERSE POPULATIONS (assignment) >
        • ENGL 301 RESEARCH IN TEACHING DIVERSE POPULATIONS (instructions & sample annotations)
      • ENGL 301 ASSIGNMENT DESIGN (assignment)
    • ENGL102 >
      • ENGL 102 Class Discussion Board
      • ENGL102SYLLABUS
      • ENGL102 PORTFOLIOS/Research Notebook
      • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: Class Profile Page
      • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENTS: Reading Journals
      • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH PROJECT >
        • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: POSITIONING YOURSELF
        • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: Locating & Evaluating part I
    • ENGL 202 BIZ Com >
      • ENGL 202 Business Writing SYLLABUS
    • ENGL 227 INTRO TO CNF WORKSHOP
    • ENGL 298 Second Year Seminar: This Bridgewater Life
    • ENGL406 RESEARCH IN WRITING STUDIES
    • ENGL 493 THE PERSONAL ESSAY
    • ENGL 493 Seminar in Writing & Writing Studies: The History of First Year Composition >
      • ENGL 493 Assignments: Annotated Bibliography & Presentation
    • ENGL 511 Reading & Writing Memoir
    • DURFEE Engl101
  • BSU Homepage