FINAL MEMOIR ASSIGNMENT

REQUIREMENT CHECKLIST
2-3 pages
Typed, hard copy
Double-spaced
12 pt. Times New Roman Font
Title
Header (properly formatted)
Stapled
Due on November 6

Assignment: Select a moment, or a specific incident, from memoryan experience
that has stayed with you. In a well-written essay, narrate that experience, analyze it,
and determine what impact that experience has had on developing the person you
are today. Choose an event that illustrates and explores tensions you have
encountered. Identify a complication or struggle of values. Then show how you
evaluated the complication and resolved it. End your memoir by telling your readers
what you learned from this experience.

PROMPTS (Choose one):
1. Describe a time in your life when you pretended to be someone or something
you knew you really werent. Did you try to change your personality to fit in
with a certain group? How did that work for you?
2. Describe a time when you manipulated or deceived your parents or
guardians in some way. How did you feel (before, during, after)? What were
the consequences, if any?
3. Describe a time you knowingly did something wrong. How did you feel
(before, during, after)? What were the consequences, if any?
4. Describe the first person you really idolized or wanted to imitate. What made
you pick that person? What did you do to imitate them? What was different
about them from yourself and your own life?
5. Have you ever just nodded and agreed or gone along with someone even
though you knew they were crazy or foolish or wrong? Has this ever
occurred with someone who had a particularly powerful, charismatic
personality? Describe the situation.

Evaluation Criteria: A good autobiographical incident
1. Focuses on a single incident
2. Includes enough background information for the reader to understand what
happened, but does not bog down your narrative with irrelevant information
3. Shows what the main character wants (goal), why they want it (motivation), and
what problems they encounter in reaching their goal (conflict)
4. Includes objective, subjective, and figurative description and sensory details and
describes specific actions to bring the incident to life: SHOW dont tell
5. Portrays characters vividly through a varied use of indirect characterization
6. Makes the personal significance of the incident clear through either implication or
direct statement
7. Presents events in a logical, coherent organization