ESSAY #1: MEMORY AND MEMOIR
PERSONAL WRITING: THE REFLECTIVE ESSAY
. . . for the writer, there is no oblivion. Only endless memory.
(Anita Brookner, British novelist)
Memoir is how we make sense of who we are, who we once were, and what values and
heritage shaped us.
(William Zinsser, Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir)
[Memoirs] elevate experience into art and use individual lives to locate universal truths.
(Mary Karr, memoirist)
It is the artist’s job to delve down into the subject in search of insight and enlightenment,
and like the poem, like the short story, the personal essay invites such exploration. (Dinty
W. Moore, memoirist, author)
INTRODUCTION
Memorable events and vivid impressions shape the people we become and give us a
sense of self. Often when we reflect upon these events, we discover ideas and meanings
that illuminate our lives. When we write about our memories and reflections, we might
employ a type of personal essay called the memoir. Your memoir will dramatize a
truthful story that contains a narrative structure, vivid description, dialog, and reflective
commentary. Your essay should contain a “universal truth” that will let readers connect
with your essay. You want to intertwine these elements as if in a woven fabric.
WRITING ASSIGNMENT
Write a 750 – 1,000 word first-person point of view personal essay in the form of a
memoir. Focus on a specific, single, focused experience that caused you (even forced
you) to think because it taught you a significant lesson, gave you a new understanding, or
left a lasting impression. Perhaps the event triggered you into thinking about yourself in a
different way or questioning your values.
Your purposes are to reflect by looking back upon and to express a tone (attitude,
feeling, or mood) about that specific experience. Also consider your reader—you want to
entertain the readers in the sense that you want to engage them in your memoir. Your
audience is your English 1301 class—a supportive community of writers and your
instructor.
Your essay should be thesis driven as you reveal a main idea that unifies your essay,
clarifies your purpose, and suggests your primary strategy of narration. Set your plot
into motion: after a brief exposition (revealing setting, characters, point of view, and
thesis), establish conflict or adversity (the heart of a story), create suspense, let the
rising action build to a climax, and maybe offer an epiphany (sudden understanding),
resolution and/or denouement. Your essay might also include irony.
Use dialog to let the reader hear the speaking voices of you characters. Your dialog can
also move your story forward. Up to fifty percent of your essay may be dialog.
Jeff Lindemann, English 1301
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In your essay, offer narrative commentary on your experience. Comment on emotion,
meaning, significance, universal truth. You might unroll your narrative commentary
throughout your essay or save it for you conclusion (your denouement).
Description is your secondary or supporting strategy as you sketch in your setting and
characters. Use figurative language (metaphor, simile, hyperbole, and
personification), vivid and concrete diction, and imagery appealing to the five senses
where appropriate.
In addition, give these characters speaking voices with dialog and let these characters
help move your plot forward.
Our motto for Essay #1 is “Show, don’t just tell, your story.”
NOTE: This first essay should NOT look like a five paragraph essay (introduction, three
body paragraphs, and a conclusion). The sample essay that we will read in class certainly
don’t look like five paragraph themes!
As we study how to write a memoir, we will be reading sample essays on our Learning
Web. You will also want to use the Reading Guide posted on our Learning Web. Here
are some of the sample essays we will be reading:
Langston Hughes’ “Salvation”
Annie Dillard’s “The Chase”
E. B. White’s “Once More to the Lake”
Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds”
George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” (optional)
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS/DOCUMENT DESIGN
Type your 750 word essay in 12 point Roman times. Double space it (about two and a
third pages). Also submit your creating activities any (listing/freewriting), planning
page, rough draft(s), and self/peer critique response behind your final draft. (Final
draft goes on top.) Follow the manuscript mechanics discussed in class concerning your
name, instructor, course, and date. Use headers (your last name, no comma, and the page
number). Check your syllabus for your due dates on the rough draft (for peer critique)
and final draft.
Jeff Lindemann, English 1301
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