21W.022 | Spring 2014 | Undergraduate

Writing and Experience: Reading and Writing Autobiography

Assignments

Some assignments are due between class sessions. These are listed in the right column, but without any session numbers.

In the table below, “distribute” indicates when an assignment is handed out, and “due” indicates when it is due.

For additional guidelines see Guidelines for Homework and Class Participation (PDF).

SES # TOPICS ASSIGNMENTS
1 Introduction to the Course: Why Write Autobiographically?

Distribute: Introductory materials

In-class: Communication Self-assessment Inventory (PDF)
2 Beginning to Tell Our Stories

Due: Introductory exercise: Beginning to Tell Your Story (PDF)

Distribute: Homework exercise on Walker (PDF)
    Due: Writer’s Letter Assignment
3 Crafting the Self: Experience and the Shaping Of Identity; Writer and Audience

Due: Homework exercise on Walker

Distribute: Essay 1; Homework exercise on Orwell (PDF)
4 Crafting the Self: Experience and the Shaping Of Identity

Due: Homework exercise on Orwell

Distribute: Homework exercise on Tan (PDF); Oral Presentations on Writing Issues (PDF); Past Topics: Oral Presentations on Writing Issues (PDF)
5 Family Relationships, Language, Legitimacy and the Writer’s Craft

Due: Homework exercise on Tan

Distribute: Essay 1 workshop instructions

In-class: Deep Autobiography Exercise: The Intersection of Family History and Autobiography (PDF); Writing on Language (PDF)
    Due: Essay 1
6 Workshop: Essay 1

Due: Marked-up essays and comment letters for classmates

Distribute: Homework exercise on Edelman and Marin (PDF)
7 The Self and the Community

Due: Homework exercise on Edelman and Marin

Distribute: Essay 2; Suggested Citation Style for Essays (PDF)
    Due: Proposals for oral presentation topics
8 Work and Education

Bring five copies of Proposal / Paragraph, Essay 2

Due: Homework exercise on Douglass and Nelson (PDF)

Distribute: Homework exercise on Witherspoon (PDF)

In-class: Five Minutes “In Media Res” (PDF)
9 Work: Creativity and Integrity

Due: Homework exercise on Witherspoon

Distribute: Homework exercise on King and Frank (PDF)

Peer review: Proposal, Essay 2 (2 paragraphs)
10 Self-Writing / Speaking: Captivity and Advocacy (1) Due: Homework exercise on King and Frank
11 Self-Writing / Speaking: Captivity and Advocacy (2)

Distribute: Essay 2 workshop instructions
    Due: Essay 2
12 Workshop I (Large Group): Essay 2 No assignments due
13 Workshop II (Small Groups): Essay 2

Bring review letters and marked-up essays

Distribute: Homework exercise on O’Brien (PDF)

In-class: Self-assessment: Editing and Reviewing Skills (PDF)
14

How to Tell a Story of War or Struggle: Writing About Groups

Oral Presentations

Due: Homework exercise on O’Brien

Distribute: Essay 3; Homework exercise on Eggers (PDF)

In-Class: Exercise in Collective Autobiography, “The Things They Carried” (PDF)
15 How to Tell a Survival Story Due: Homework exercise on Eggers
16

Oral Presentations

 No assignments due
17 Writing About Illness (1)

Distribute: Homework exercise on Ehrenreich (PDF)
18

Writing About Illness (2)

Oral Presentations

Due: Homework exercise on Ehrenreich

Distribute: Homework exercise on Kaysen (PDF)

Bring four copies of Proposal / Paragraph, Essay 3.

Write two paragraphs: A one-paragraph proposal for your essay (describing experience and theme) and one paragraph from the essay (introduction, or another paragraph).
    Due: Revision of Essay 1 with commented-on first version and cover letter
19 Writing About Mental Illness (1) Due: Homework exercise on Kaysen
    Due: Essay 3
20 Workshop: Essay 3

Due: Marked-up essays and comment letters for classmates

Distribute: Homework exercise on Thompson (PDF)
21

Writing about Mental Illness (2)

Oral Presentations

Due: Homework exercise on Thompson

Distribute: Homework exercise on Gilman (PDF)
22 Writing About Mental Illness: Autobiographically Inspired Fiction / Beyond the Known: Autobiographical Travel Writing

Due: Homework exercise on Gilman

Distribute: Essay 4
    Due: Revision of Essay 2 with commented-on first version and cover letter
23 Workshop: Essay 4

Due: Essay 4

Bring five copies
24 Beyond the Known: Autobiographical Travel Writing (cont.) / The Challenge of Closure in Autobiography In-class: Closure in Autobiographical Writing (PDF)
25 Online Course Evaluations No assignments due
26 Course Overview / Celebration Due: Final Submissions of Essays 3 and 4 (PDF)

Supplemental Handouts

Working With Images of the Future Self (PDF)

Working With Interior Monologue (PDF)

The Soundtracks of Our Lives: Integrating Music Into Autobiographical Writing (PDF)

Integrating Music Writing Exercise (PDF)

Assignment

Length: 4-5 pg., double-spaced.

This assignment asks you to reflect on a central aspect of your identity. Individuals define their identities in varying ways—in terms of individual personality traits, core values, personal goals and commitments. In addition, people often define themselves through membership in family, ethnic, national, religious or political groups.

Through exploring a central aspect of your identity, write an essay that narrates and reflects on your experience(s) to connect with issues that speak to a wider audience. In essays, it is often effective to ground your discussion of identity in such experience(s) as:

  • An important event(s) or turning point(s) in your life
  • A meaningful experience within a close family or personal relationship
  • A family or personal ritual or “rite of passage”
  • A meaningful artifact (photo, sentimental object, family heirloom or keepsake)
  • A special or “sacred” place or meaningful journey.

Reflect carefully on the voice that you adopt as a writer. Don’t assume that first-person narration is your only option; you can write about yourself in the third person, if you wish. Be vivid and descriptive in your prose; use the tools of fiction–character, setting and dialogue. Shape your narrative to convey clearly a perspective or central idea.

The challenge of this assignment is to shape and frame the raw material of experience and memory for a reading public. Using the lens of experience, you have a rich opportunity as a writer to communicate with readers about a wide variety of topics. Think about how best to reach your intended audience(s).

For the revision, you should use at least one outside source as an epigraph quotation under your title. (See Shepherd and Gregg essays for examples of epigraphs.) We also will review epigraph usage in class. You may also use outside sources within the essay.

Narrative Writing Strategies

  1. Remember that the power of your essay comes from the vivid and insightful narration of your own unique experience.
  2. Check for “compressed experience” (“telling” over “showing”), i.e., too many stories told in shorthand. Which story(ies) do you want to tell?
  3. Expand your essay through narrative layering, attention to the “tools of fiction”: character, setting, and dialogue. Layering strategies can include:
    • detailed physical descriptions of setting
    • physical description of yourself as a character
    • inclusion of relevant backstory; anticipate questions readers may have about your experience. What do readers need to know to understand your experience?
    • Use of dialogue and interior monologue. Writers often portray internal conflict through the juxtaposition of dialogue with interior monologue. (Dialogue should be on separate lines for separate speakers. Interior monologue usually appears in italics.)
    • creative use of time in narration (e.g.: simple flashback/flashforward, multiple flashback/flashforwards). Be sure to transition so that your reader can follow the narrative.
  4. Identify your argument, i.e., what are your claims about your experience? If you say that an event “changed my life”, that’s a very strong claim. You need to show the reader how your life changed or modify the claim.
  5. Check for proportionality; the most important parts of the narrative should usually occupy the most space.
  6. Change 50% of: your “being” verbs to action verbs, passive verbs to active verbs.
  7. Check for “breaks in voice” in your essay. Sometimes, these changes are planned and desirable. However, other times “breaks in voice” occur because of breaks in a writing pattern or uncertainty as to theme or argument.
  8. Read your intro and conclusion together as “bookends” of the piece. If you identify similar problems in each (e.g.: fuzzy language, thematic confusion), check for this issue throughout the essay. Identify the relation between the two: Does your essay have a circular style? Does the conclusion show movement from the introduction? Does the conclusion promote reflection or action? Watch for rushed or clichéd conclusions!
  9. Check your title / subtitle. How well does it attract the reader and serve as a preview of your piece? Include an epigraph quote(s) under the title if you find an appropriate one.

Sequence

Draft 1 – Due Between Sessions 5 and 6

Length: 5 typed pg. (First version should be at least 4 pages; revisions should be 5 pages.) Use Times New Roman 12 point, double-spaced. Name your electronic files with your last name and essay number and version (e.g.: Brown, E1V1).

When handing in, include a letter describing the strong points and areas for improvement in the essay.

Workshop – Session 6

Essay 1 workshop instructions (PDF)

Revision – Due Between Sessions 18 and 19

This should include a new cover letter describing revision changes. Bold any changes that you make in revision. Revised essays should have at least 250 words that differ from (or are added to) the first version. Essays and cover letters should be in separate files.

Assignment

Length: 7-8 pg., double-spaced.

For this assignment, you won’t be writing “straight” autobiography, but rather a personal investigative “hybrid” essay. The task is to pursue a question or explore a topic or opinion that arises from your own experience, integrating relevant material from secondary sources—academic books, articles, newspaper features, etc.

To start this assignment, you need a question or opinion that emerges from your own experience. The story of your thinking through that question / opinion will serve as the backbone of the essay. Then, research the question through outside sources. Keep in mind that the aim is not to weigh your essay down with exhaustive research but to use genuinely relevant material and integrate it gracefully. During the writing / research process (e.g., between first version and revision), students will meet with Louise Harrison Lepera to discuss their research strategies.

For example, a student writer might:

  • Begin with her experience as an immigrant from Japan and incorporate literature on the experience of immigration and the challenges of a hybrid identity, combining aspects of Japanese and American culture;
  • Narrate the experience of a sports injury and recovery and inform the reader of recent developments in sports medicine and treatments for that particular injury, using outside sources and her own experience;
  • Start with his experience of taking a “gap year” before college and then introduce the reader to arguments about the benefits and drawbacks of “gap years”.

Sequence

Proposal / Intro paragraph — Due Session 8

Part 1: What is the experience that inspires this essay? What is the key questions (s) or opinion that arises out of it? On a separate sheet, list five relevant outside sources.

Part 2: Write the introductory paragraphy.

Note: If this is a companion piece to Essay 1, note how it differs.

Bring five copies to class.

Draft 1 — Due between sessions 11 and 12

5–6 pages. Include a cover letter. Bring five copies to class for peer review

Workshops — Session 12 (large group) and Session 13 (small groups)

Essay 2 workshop review form (PDF)

Revision (plus revision cover letter) — Due between Sessions 21 and 22

Suggested length: 7-8 pg.

Note: For the first version, please submit a cover letter reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of the piece. With your revision, please include a new cover letter commenting on the ways in which you have responded to suggestions and the changes you have made in revision (e.g., including research). Bold any revision changes.

Assignment

Length 6–7pg., double-spaced.

The third essay assignment is “open topic” and enables you to continue to craft narratives drawn from your own experience. These stories may follow from your previous writing (e.g., exercise 1, a “backstory” to Essay 1 and / or 2) or may focus on completely different experiences or themes. Your essay should explore an experience that speaks to a wider audience through reflecting on common human concerns (e.g., the value of friendship, confronting failure or dealing with mourning), MIT-specific experiences and issues (e.g., adapting to college life, dealing with relationships, stress, deciding on majors / career) or larger social issues (e.g., community service, world hunger).

As you craft the essay, consider various options in narration discussed in class:

  • Using dialogue together with interior monologue.
  • Narrating some of your past experience in present tense to give a greater sense of immediacy.
  • Employing techniques such as “day-in-the-life” or “the things they carried”.
  • Including parts of actual or retrospective diaries, letters, text messages, etc.
  • Using “artifacts of the self” and “self-evidence”—such as treasured personal objects and clothing, favorite music, books, poems, movies, “to-do”, grocery and shopping lists, credit card bills, phone records, transcripts—to help you tell parts of your story.
  • Crafting your essay as a letter. (Think of the letter as using “dual address”, written to a person/group –could be yourself—but simultaneously engaging a wider public.)

Optional:

  • Include photos, videos or other visual supplements to your essay.
  • Conduct an interview for your essay.

Intro / Proposal – Due Session 18

Write two paragraphs: a one-paragraph plan / proposal for your essay (describing experience and theme) and one paragraph from the essay (it can be the introduction, but it need not be).

Bring four copies to class.

Draft 1 – Due between sessions 19 and 20 (at least four pages) with a cover letter.

Workshop – Session 20

Essay 3 workshop instructions (PDF)

Bring marked-up essays and copies of reviews.

Revision – Due Session 26

Assignment

Length: 6–7 pg., double-spaced.

The fourth and last essay assignment enables you to continue to craft narratives drawn from your own experience. These stories may follow from your previous writing or may focus on completely different experiences or themes.

As you craft your final essay, consider various options in narration discussed in class:

  • Using dialogue together with interior monologue
  • Narrating past experience in present tense to give a greater sense of immediacy
  • Employing techniques such as “day-in-the-life” or “the things they carried”
  • Including parts of actual or retrospective diaries, letters, text messages, etc.
  • Using “artifacts of the self” and “self-evidence”—such as treasured personal objects and clothing, favorite music, books, poems, movies, “to-do”, grocery and shopping lists, credit card bills, phone records, transcripts—to help you tell parts of your story
  • Crafting your essay as a letter. (Think of the letter as using “dual address”, written to a person / group—could be yourself—but simultaneously engaging a wider public.)
  • Thinking of your writing techniques in filmic terms (tone as musical score, flashbacks, flashforwards, etc.)

Prewrite – Due Session 23

Either a proposal and the first two paragraphs or the first version.

Workshop – Session 23

Bring five copies.

Essay 4 proposal / prewrite review (PDF)

Essay 4 in-class workshop review (PDF)

Revision – Due Session 26

Along with the revision of Essay 3

Final Cover Letter – Due Session 26

Should comment on the changes in both final versions of Essays 3 and 4, as well as the ways in which you have developed as a personal narrative writer this term.

Course Info

Instructor
Departments
As Taught In
Spring 2014
Level
Undergraduate
Topics
Learning Resource Types
Presentation Assignments
Written Assignments
Download Course
MIT Open Learning
Over 2,500 courses & materials
Freely sharing knowledge with learners and educators around the world. Learn more
© 2001–2024 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Accessibility
Creative Commons License
Terms and Conditions
Proud member of:
© 2001–2024 Massachusetts Institute of Technology