Writing the Remembering Essay

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Writing the Remembering Essay

• Based on Chapter 4, Remembering
• Prepared by Pamela Hanford

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• Your memories, experiences, and stories are
  important to learning and writing.
• The focus of remembering in your writing is not
  egotism or self-indulgence, however.
• The reason writers use memory in their work is to
  understand themselves and their world.

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• The value of remembering lies exactly here
• written memories have the power to teach you
  and,
• through empathy with your readers,
• to inform or convince them as well.

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• For this assignment, you will write an essay
  about an important person, place, and/or event in
  your life.
• Your purpose is to recall and then use specific
  examples that recreate this memory and show why
  it is so important to you. 

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• Look at the "helpful suggestions" which follow.
• The more of these elements your essay includes,
  the more successful it will be.

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Shaping the essay

• Ask yourself these questions
• What is your subject?
• Why is this topic interesting or important?
• What is your main idea?
• Who is your audience?

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Genres

• You might consider these formats
• Traditional narrative format
• Autobiographical passages
• Memoirs

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Your writing techniques

• Consider
• Chronological order (pg. 138)
• Comparison/Contrast (pg. 139)
• Images
• Voice and Tone (pg. 140)
• Persona (141)

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• Dialogue (pg. 142)
• Similes (pg. 87-88)
• Metaphors (pg. 87-88)
• Analogies (pg. 87-88)

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E. M. Forster wrote

• We think one event occurs after or before
  another the thought is often in our minds, and
  much of our talk and action proceeds on the
  assumption.

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• In much of our talk and action, but not all
  there seems something else in life besides time,
  something which may conveniently be called
  "value," something which is measured not by
  minutes or hours,

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• but by intensity, so that when we look at our
  past it does not stretch back evenly but piles up
  into
• a few notable pinnacles . . .

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• In this essay, you may find you are remembering
  the details of one of these pinnacles.

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• When I say pinnacles, I do mean just that.
  Were not looking for a narration about a
  childhood, or a year. Were looking for a
  specific event, told in detail, in real time.
  Take us with you and let us experience that
  memory with you.

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Physical requirements

• Your essay should be four to six pages in length,
  and formatted in proper MLA style (pg. 675). A
  works cited page is not required, unless you cite
  or refer to sources in your text.
• You should use a standard font (nothing unusual
  or cute please, this will be a formal paper) in a
  ten to twelve point size.  

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• The font size and page requirement mean that the
  paper must contain from 1000 to 1500 words.
• A title page is not required.

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Each essay must have these three elements

• Title 
•  
• Introduction
• Conclusion

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Revising

• Revising begins when you get your first idea and
  start collecting and shaping.
• It continues as you redraft certain sections of
  your essay and rework your organization.

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• In many classes you will give and receive advice
  from the other writers in your class.
• In our class, we will read the work of our group
  members, offering (and receiving) helpful
  suggestions.

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• When you do peer review and revision, read the
  suggestions on pages 144-146.
• You will get good and bad advice, so you must
  decide what is important.
• Remember, you must SHOW people and events vividly
  dont just TELL us about them.

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Mark Twain wrote

• The difference between the right word and the
  nearly right word is the same as that between
  lightning and the lightning bug.

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• Before you submit the final version of the essay
  by mail, you will take a quiz in WebCT over some
  of these essential remembering elements.
• Make certain youve reviewed these before you
  begin writing, and again before you submit.

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• Have fun with your remembering!