English 1218: Essay #3
Genre: Personal Narrative
Audience: Readers of Where Have You Been? Where Are You Going?, a newsletter distributed each semester to college freshman throughout Tennessee
Purpose: To understand your personal experiences in a broader cultural context
Format: Narrative elements—setting, dialogue, description, etc.
Length: 3-5 pages, whatever allows you the fullest presentation of your story and ideas
For this assignment, you will tell your readers the story of an experience that you have had, or possibly one that someone close to you has had. This experience must in some way be related to a song. Try to present the experience as vividly as you can, using relevant details in both event and description. Make use of the song—it's lyrics, tone, etc.—in the telling of the story. Without going overboard with minutiae that contribute little or nothing to the story, recreate in words the setting, action, characters, dialogue, and so on. A significant element to this assignment is, furthermore, that your particular experience should serve as an example of some universal "truth" about you, your readers/peers, and the culture in which you live.
Keep your readers in mind as you write. They are not faceless. They are your roommates, your neighbors in the residence halls, your classmates. But they are not only students at East Tennessee State University. They are also attending schools all over Tennessee. They are first-year students at larger universities in Knoxville and Memphis, at other regional state universities such as UT-Chattanooga and MTSU, at campuses in both urban and rural settings, at elite private colleges, and at colleges with strong religious affiliations. Your readers are of many faiths, of many racial, economic, and social backgrounds. But they are in general your age, and they are entering adulthood as you are—by continuing their educations.
Below are two possible ways to approach this essay. Feel free to use or adapt either if it fits with your own experience. Or simply think about these suggestions and apply the general ideas to some experience of your own. However you choose to approach the narrative, make use of the song in the telling story. The essay should make clear how a song can connect our personal experiences with the broader culture in which we live.
1. Think about a time in your life—a year, a period of weeks, a moment—in which a certain song played a part. You can't think of that time without hearing the song; you can't hear the song without thinking about that time. Now, tell the story. Keep in mind the elements of good writing: interesting introduction, strong central focus (thesis?), clear description, relevant details, and thoughtful conclusion.
2. Although, as in the first suggestion, a song can be like a soundtrack to our lives, songs become connected to our past experiences in different ways as well. That is, a song doesn't have to be playing at the time we're going through something in order for us to make a connection to between a song and an experience. We've all had the experience of hearing a song and thinking, "That sounds just like what happened when . . ." or "That sounds just like it felt when . . ." or "That sounds just like it's describing . . .". Using such a song as a springboard into your topic, tell the story of an event, an emotional moment, or a person/relationship.
Schedule
Tuesday, November 16—a HARD COPY of notes for 1-3 ideas you might try as a topic
Thursday, November 18—rough draft workshop; bring body paragraphs for workshopping
Tuesday, November 23—complete essay due