PROJECT: PERSONAL AND CREATIVE SETTING/SHORT MEMOIR
The fictitious scenario: You are invited to submit a short memoir for abook called Looking Forward: A Collection of Short Memoirs from California College Students. This book is intended to provide high school juniors and seniors who have college aspirations with authentic voices and stories from current college students.
The book's Submission Committee is seeking memoirs that are not only engagingbut also inspirational, motivational, and in some way valuable for students preparing for the exciting transition into college. High school juniors and seniors should gain, through your memoir, some realistic insights about young adulthood and college life. The short memoir should be approximately 1000-1200 words.
Some important considerations:
- Your memoir is not an advice column.
- Think of your memoir as a story, starring you as the main character. The narrative techniques you will use are the same as you will find in fiction.
- You will need to find a narrow focus-a concrete incident.
- Your memoirdoesn't necessarily have to be set on campus. However, it should be about your college years and its message should relate or connect to future college students. (EX: If you had a personal experience with family, friends, or job where you had to overcome obstacles to stay focused on your own goals, the lesson you learned would be valuable for the audience.)
- Memoirs include both narration and reflection. Make sure you include both narration (your memory), and reflection (your thoughts and feelings about your memory). Reflection helps readers find personal connections to your story.
- Memoirs are written for an audience. Do not write a memoir that leaves you feeling highly embarrassed, panicked, scared, or so on.
- You are free to jump right into your story and explain the background later; to use flashbacks and flashforwards; to use other techniques of fiction.
- You can organize your memoir by time, space, or many other ways. This is a creative genre.
- Characters come alive when we you use dialogue instead of just telling us what the conversation was about; when we can imagine them instead of just knowing their names.
- A setting can be made more real by using imagery (appealing to any of the five senses), by describing the physical location, the social world, the time of your life that is involved, the time in history that is involved. Show (don't tell) the reader objects, sights, sounds, aromas, textures, and flavors that are part of this world.
Effective short memoirs will reflect/include:
1. An interesting/creative title that captures the attention of the audience and reflects the main point of your memoir;
2. Your own experience, focused and demonstrating meaning and value for the reader;
3. Interesting and effective use of narrative techniques and descriptive details that show, not tell, the reader.
4. The ability to reflect upon your memories to show emotion and evoke reaction from the audience;
5. Rhetorical strategies: structure, style, tone, vocabulary appropriate for audience(s)/purpose/genre of memoir.
6. Correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Attachment:- memoir.rar