assignments ENGL513 READING & WRITING THE MEMOIR Your Final Draft
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LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 ltorda@bridgew.edu www.leetorda.com |
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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:
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.
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.
