Memoirs

= **Memoir Assignment ** g = **Your story matters** and I want to hear it! This memoir assignment is designed for you to write about a specific moment in time that allowed you to grow as an individual. Writing a memoir can be therapeutic and allows you to examine who you are and what it is that is important to you. Write about anything. If the story is a private one, no one besides me has to see it. We will nnot peer edit for this assignment, but you will be conferencing with me. This assignment will occur in progressive parts with progressive due dates so that you really get to go through the whole writing process.

To get more familiar with memoirs in an easy and fun way, watch this YouTube video of a favorite "Oldie" of mine. The lyrics are also below. The song can be considered a memoir because it has lead-up events, a climax event, follow-up events, and growth/a lesson.


 * Video: ** []


 * Lyrics: **

My child arrived just the other day He came to the world in the usual way But there were planes to catch and bills to pay He learned to walk while I was away And he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew He'd say "I'm gonna be like you dad You know I'm gonna be like you"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon Little boy blue and the man on the moon When you comin' home dad? <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">I don't know when, but we'll get together then son <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">You know we'll have a good time then

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">My son turned ten just the other day <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Can you teach me to throw", I said "Not today <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok" <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">And he walked away but his smile never dimmed <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">You know I'm gonna be like him"

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Little boy blue and the man on the moon <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">When you comin' home son? <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">I don't know when, but we'll get together then son <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">You know we'll have a good time then

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Well, he came home from college just the other day <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">So much like a man I just had to say <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?" <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">He shook his head and said with a smile <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">See you later, can I have them please?"

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Little boy blue and the man on the moon <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">When you comin' home son? <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">I don't know when, but we'll get together then son <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">You know we'll have a good time then

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">I've long since retired, my son's moved away <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">I called him up just the other day <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind" <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">You see my new job's a hassle and kids have the flu <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">It's been sure nice talking to you"

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">He'd grown up just like me <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">My boy was just like me

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Little boy blue and the man on the moon <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">When you comin' home son? <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">I don't know when, but we'll get together then son <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">You know we'll have a good time then

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Assignment outline:
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Memoir Characteristics ** || * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">It focuses and reflects on the relationship between the writer and a particular person, place, animal, or object.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">It explains the significance of the relationship.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">It leaves the reader with one impression of the subject of the memoir.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">It is limited to a particular phase, time period, place, or recurring behavior in order to develop the focus fully.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">It makes the subject of the memoir come alive.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">It maintains a first person point of view.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;"> k *See references for source <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">k || **h** <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">-Due Date: || k <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">*I did not have access online to many memoirs for free in digital copy, so I posted the one we used in class for now. When I have more books and resources to use, my reasearch shows me that //When I Was Your Age, Volume Two: Original Stories about Growing Up// is a useful compilation of short memoirs about adolescence for young adults. I would possibly use this book to pick models. l  <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">g
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Assignment 1: Understanding the Genre **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">10 points **

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;"> I have posted a sample of a memoir below. After having gone over memoir characteristics and models in class, please read over this memoir and come to class with notes on the memoir. Take notes on the following and be prepared to discuss your findings in class: l l  * Rising    <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: center;"> 1. Rising Action <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: center;">2. Climax 3. Follow-up Events 4. Feelings Evoked 5. Comparison 6. Allusion 7. Imagery 8. Word Choice 9. Irony 10. The Lesson

<span style="color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> k <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;"> Homeward Bound l By Janet Wu k <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;"> My grandmother has bound feet. Cruelly tethered since her birth, they are like bonsai trees, miniature versions of what should have been. She is a relic even in China, where foot binding was first banned more than 80 years ago when the country could no longer afford a population that had to be carried. Her slow, delicate hobble betrays her age and the status she held and lost. My own size 5 feet are huge in comparison. The marks and callouses they bear come from running and jumping, neither of which my grandmother has ever done. The difference between our feet reminds me of the incredible history we hold between us like living bookends. We stand like sentries on either side of a vast gulf.

For most of my childhood, I didn't even know she existed. My father was a young man when he left his family's village in northern China, disappearing into the chaos of the Japanese invasion and the Communist revolution that followed. He fled to Taiwan and eventually made his way to America, alone. To me, his second child, it seemed he had no family or history other than his American-born wife and four children. I didn't know that he had been writing years of unanswered letters to China.

I was still a young girl when he finally got a response, and with it the news that his father and six of his seven siblings had died in those years of war and revolution. But the letter also contained an unexpected blessing: somehow his mother had survived. So 30 years after he left home, and in the wake of President Nixon's visit, my father gathered us up and we rushed to China to find her.

I saw my grandmother for the very first time when I was 12. She was almost 80, surprisingly alien and shockingly small. I searched her wrinkled face for something familiar, some physical proof that we belonged to each other. She stared at me the same way. Did she feel cheated, I wondered, by the distance, by the time we had not spent together? I did. With too many lost years to reclaim, we had everything and nothing to say. She politely listened as I struggled with scraps of formal Chinese and smiled as I fell back on Wo bu dong (I don't understand you). And yet we communicated something strange and beautiful. I found it easy to love this person I had barely met.

The second time I saw her I was 23, arriving in China on an indulgent post-graduate-school adventure, with a Caucasian boyfriend in tow. My grandmother sat on my hotel bed, shrunken and wise, looking as if she belonged in a museum case. She stroked my asymmetrically cropped hair. I touched her feet, and her face contorted with the memory of her childhood pain. You are lucky, she said. We both understood that she was thinking of far more than the bindings that long ago made her cry. I wanted to share even the smallest part of her life's journey, but I could not conceive of surviving a dynasty and a revolution, just as she could not imagine my life in a country she had never seen. In our mutual isolation of language and experience, we could only gaze in wonder, mystified that we had come to be sitting together.

I last saw her almost five years ago. At 95, she was even smaller, and her frailty frightened me. I was painfully aware that I probably would never see her again, that I would soon lose this person I never really had. So I mentally logged every second we spent together and jockeyed with my siblings for the chance to hold her hand or touch her shoulder. Our departure date loomed like some kind of sentence. And when it came, she broke down, her face bowed into her gnarled hands. I went home, and with resignation awaited the inevitable news that she was gone.

But two months after that trip, it was my father who died. For me, his loss was doubly cruel: his death deprived me of both my foundation and the bridge to my faraway grandmother. For her, it was the second time she had lost him. For the 30 years they were separated, she had feared her son was dead. This time, there was no ambiguity, no hope. When she heard the news, my uncle later wrote us, she wept quietly. When I hear friends complain about having to visit their nearby relatives, I think of how far away my grandmother is and how untouched our relationship remains by the modern age. My brief handwritten notes are agonizingly slow to reach her. When they do arrive, she cannot read them. I cannot call her. I cannot see, hear or touch her.But last month my mother called to tell me to brush up on my Chinese. Refusing to let go of our tenuous connection to my father's family, she has decided to take us all back to China in October for my grandmother's 100th birthday. And so every night, I sit at my desk and study, thinking of her tiny doll-like feet, of the miles and differences that separate us, of the moments we'll share when we meet one last time. And I beg her to hold on until I get there. || **h** <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">-Due Date: || i <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">I would like you to take one of the lists you jotted down in class (family and/or childhood memories, embarassing moments, people who have impacted you, times that you had to grow up fast, or times when you were proud of or disappointed in yourself) and turn it into a web. Make a web just as we have for previous papers, and then star a few very specific topics that you get from this web that you would want to use for the climax event in your memoir piece. <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">k <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Remember, you want to get to a very to eventually get to a very specific moment in time that sticks out to you and greatly impacted you -- a moment that elicits emotions. ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Assignment 2: ****<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Brainstorming **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">5 points **
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Assignment 3: Life is Short **

**h** <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">-Due Date: || <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">k <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I would like you to take one of your *starred* events from the brainstorming assignment and make it into a short autobiography. Tell me about this moment in time, how you felt, and what you learned, BUT do it in 150 words or less. This event can be used as the climax of your memoir, so put effor into it. <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">k <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">To get full credit you will need to: <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">f <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Below I have given you a personal example that I wrote:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Brief Auobiography **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">40 points **
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">stay within the length limit
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">turn the piece in on time
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">have perfect grammar since the piece is so short
 * 4) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">have a lesson.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Every year for his birthday I got him a tie. The first few were heinous: puppies, baseballs, and cheese. After the tacky came the sophisticated: Brooks Brothers and striped.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">One year, I forgot. I wrote him a card, threw it on his nightstand, and ran to my room all rosy-cheeked.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">That night, my dad came in and kneeled next to my bed. “Feel my eyes, Peanut.” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I reached down in the dark and felt his scruffy face. It was all wet; I froze.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Your words are better than any present you could ever buy me.” He kissed me on the forehead and left.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I haven’t bought a tie since. ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Assignment 4: Memoir **

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Rough Draft: 50 points <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">-Due Date:

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Conference: 10 points <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">-Due Date:

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Final Draft: 100 points <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">-Due Date: || f <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Now, it is finally time to write! <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">k <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Use the models as guides and keep referring back to the memoir characteristics. <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">k

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Here are the specific requirements: <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">k
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Under 3-5 pages double-spaced. You can do "A" work with any length within that range.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Adhere to the memoir characteristics.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">No grammar or spelling errors.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Your final grade will also be determined by the usual writing rubic, which I have included below.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">1. Rough Draft: <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">k <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">Just spew a draft. It might be helpful to start with your short autobiogrpahy and then write small paragraphs with lead-up and follow-up events that relate. Then write about the lesson learned. The draft does not have to be perfect, but we do need something to work with. It should flow and be the 3-5 page length, with the idea developed.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">2. Conference <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">g <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">We will meet in class on (insert date) and (date) to conference. I will also be available after school by appointment. Come prepared with any questions. We will also have an optional, after-school peer revision day.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">3. Final Draft <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">g <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">This should be handed in after a lot of revision and editing. Feel proud of the piece you hand in to me! You will be bumped down a letter grade for every day late that it is. <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">g ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Rubric ** || [[file:writingrubric.docx]] ||