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Please post your rough draft of your Memoir here. Your rough draft should be attached to your post as either a Microsoft Word document or as a PDF.
This draft should be a complete draft (1200-1500 words) to ensure that you will as much valuable feedback as possible from your classmates. Keep in mind that I will not be commenting on your drafts. Instead this is your opportunity to share your ideas, strategies, and content with one another in an effort to not only write better essays, but also to help build a sense of community in our classroom.
If you have specific questions about your rough draft, or if you need help with a certain section of your essay, please let me know via email or schedule a conference. I am happy to help! Instructions: There are several ways to focus your memoir. You can choose to focus on a memory, a person, an event, a time of transition, or anything else that appeals to you. But this memoir should be more of a snapshot than a life story. I don’t want to know about everything that has ever happened to you up to this point. I want you to choose some piece of your life that is meaningful and write about it in great detail and description. Remember that no matter how you frame your memoir, you should be the main character in this essay.
Using the pieces by Gay, Cisneros, and Shteyngart linked to in our course text as models, draw on personal or community/family memories and artifacts to recreate a specific time, moment, and place through narration and description. Be sure to incorporate a conflict and resolution as well as a bottom line to your essay—a lesson learned or a moral to your story.
That being said, I encourage you to think of topics that are linked to current events in our country and your experience with them. You may wish to use this as an opportunity to reflect on your experiences and create a narrative about topics like:
COVID-19/Quarantine
Police brutality
The Black Lives Matter movement
Recent protests related to social justice and systemic racism
The Supreme Court’s ruling on DACA
The Supreme Court’s ruling to protect LGBTQ+ employees
You do not have to choose one of these topics—your memoir topic can be on just about any topic you wish as long as it is appropriate for the classroom (remember this will be shared with and reviewed by your peers). I have had many students write successful memoirs about childhood memories, their first day of college, moving into the dorms, a study abroad experience, or other memorable times with friends and family. Just remember that your memoir must have a plot, characters, conflict, and theme. It must also contain rich descriptive paragraphs and a clear lesson learned. Why was this such an important part of your life?
In your memoir, you are expected to:
Choose a topic that is appropriate for academic memoir writing (remember that you will be sharing this with the entire class)
Create a clear and cohesive plot with characters and a conflict that is overcome by your main character (you!)
Use sharp details and vivid description (use all five senses when possible)
Use Gay’s, Cisneros’, or Shteyngart’s pieces as a lens through which to write your own memoir
Use your memoir to demonstrate a good understanding of this new writing situation
Avoid clichés and stilted sentence structures and phrasing
Use proper grammar, proofread closely, and polish your writing
Create a strong, cohesive, and clear piece of writing
Incorporate a lesson learned or moral to your story (theme)
Other Guidelines:
Your memoir should be 1250-1500 words long (not including the title page or references page)
It should be in Times New Roman, 12-point font, double spaced
Please use APA or MLA formatting guidelines for your memoir
If you use outside sources in your memoir, please use in-text citations and a reference or works cited page. However, no references are required.

For this assignment, you’ll be referring back to Design Your Path Parts 1 & 2 and writing a culminating paper – don’t worry it’s not a terribly long one. Don’t forget to name the file as outlined in the syllabus, and be sure you include a header in your document.
Step 1: Download the template provided for this assignment. You must use this template.
Step 2: Write a 500-word paper identifying the two pathways you have chosen to follow. Discuss why you chose these pathways and how the Student Learning Outcomes align with your personal/professional goal(s). If you do not discuss the SLOs, you will lose points.
Step 3: Refer to the feedback I provided for Design Your Path Parts 1 & 2. You should incorporate that feedback into Step 4.
Step 4: Fill in Area F/Field of Study and the Area G pathways in the template. Don’t forget to identify your two pathways! You’ve already selected your Area G Pathway courses (you may need to make some tweaks based on my previous feedback). Area F/Field of Study is where the prerequisites you (or I) previously identified come into play. You’ll want to strategically place prerequisites needed for your pathway courses in Area F/Field of Study. I strongly encourage you to consult Area F/Field of Study in DegreeWorks. Many of you have at least one or two classes listed in Area F/Field of Study already, and some of you may have it fully completed.
Note: do NOT include ITDS 2799, ITDS 2791, ITDS 2792, ITDS 2793, ITDS 3099, ITDS 4799, ITDS 4791, or ITDS 4792 in Area F/Field of Study or in your pathways. Those are already required courses that you take in addition to the 15 credits in Area F/Field of Study and two Area G pathways (18 credits each).
Grading Breakdown:
Essay – 75 points
Area F – 25 points
Pathway 1 – 25 points
Pathway 2 – 25 points I