Part:1
Select a personal experience or event.
Write a 1,050- to 1,400-word memoir about the experience or event, drawing on the techniques you have learned throughout this course. Grammar and punctuation variations are acceptable if they serve the needs of the piece.
Include the following:
- Write the memoir in first-person.
- Incorporate both the details of the experience or event and your personal reactions.
Part:2
For this assignment, complete either Scenario A or B:
Scenario A
Imagine for this assignment that you are a literary critic and will be published in a leading literary magazine.
Choose one of the creative nonfiction essays from this week’s readings.
Write a 350-word magazine critique that reflects how the writer was able to use a personal experience or observation in an essay and then transform it into a life lesson to which others can relate. Additionally, make sure you describe the role of creative nonfiction in literature. For example, what was the writer’s contribution?
Note: You do not need to use a particular style, such as MLA or APA, for this particular type of assignment but include a title page.
Submit your assignment.
Scenario B
Imagine that you are being interviewed for a literary magazine.
Use a question and answer format.
Write a 350-word magazine critique that reflects on how you were able to use a personal experience or observation in an essay and then transform it into a life lesson to which others can relate. For example, you can explain why you felt this was an important subject or how you would describe your contribution to creative nonfiction.
Creative nonfiction essay:
Sebastian Matthews: Buying Wine
When we were boys, we had a choice: stay in the car or elsefollow him into Wine Mart, that cavernous retail barn,down aisle after aisleCalifornia reds to Australian blendsto French dessert winespast bins loaded like bat rackswith bottles, each with its own heraldic tag, its licked coatof arms, trailing after our father as he pushed the ever-filling cart,bent forward in concentration, one hand in mouth strokinghis unkempt mustache, the other lofting up bottles like fruitthen setting them down, weighing the store of data in his brainagainst the cost, the year, the cut of meat hed select at the butchers:a lamb chop, say, if this Umbrian red had enough body to marry,to dance on its legs in the bell of the night; or some scallops maybe,those languid hearts of the sea, a poets dozen in a baggy,and a Pinot Grigio light enough not to disturb their salty murmur.Often, wed stay in the car until wed used up the radioand our dwindling capacity to believe our fathermight actually Just be back, then break free, releasingour seatbelts, drifting to the edges of the parking lot like horsesloosed in a field following the suns endgame of shade; sometimesId peer into the front window, breath fogging the sale signs,catching snippets of my fathers profile appearing and disappearingbehind the tall cardboard stacks. Once I slipped back into the store,wandering the aisles, master of my own cart, loading it to burstingfor the dream party I was going to throw. But mostly, like now,as I search for the perfect $12 bottle, Id shuffle along, dancing bearbehind circus master, and wait for my father to pronounce, tallin his basketball body, wine bottles like babies in his hands, Aha! Macmillan UK
