Prompt:Write a personal narrative about an experience that has shaped your identity, values, and/or understanding, specifically around the issues of race, class, gender, or sexual orientation AND reflect on how this experience has shaped your identity, values, and/or understanding of the world around you.

You will be writing about experiences that have shaped you as a person - do NOT write about the influence of a specific person in your life. Some questions to consider might be: What cultural background forms the beginnings of your own journey to who you are today?

In this experience, were you in the position of having or not having privilege in the social world such as parental support, values, and opportunities?

What social institutions - such as education or religion-- shaped your experience? At what age and why did you learn more about the location of your race, class, gender, or sexual orientation in the wider world? What choices, if any, did you make to reinforce or flea from these experiences?

You must incorporate at least two course concepts into your paper and demonstrate understanding of those concepts as well as tie them into your personal experience.

Note: The experience need not be a large life-defining moment; it can be something as simple as your first day at a new school. The important thing is that you reflect upon what you learned about your identity from the experience. Also, don't try to write an entire autobiography.

Limit your narrative to one experience and concentrate on setting up vivid and descriptive scenes that appeal to the readers' senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell.

Audience: You should write thinking of the class as your audience. Don't write about something that is too private to share with anyone in this class. The papers should be able to be read publicly.

Style: You should write about your own life and experiences. This paper should be created out of your explorations of the topics in the class. You are NOT being asked to write fiction - or a novel - this is about your life as story. Your own writing style could be informal, use dialogue, use description, use comparison, or use examples.

Process: In writing autobiographically, it is important to remember that writing is a process and you can start one place and expect to revise and change the beginning, middle or end at any point in the process.