The Assignment

Welcome to the DSA Reading as Writers memoir blog! You will use this site to write your casual, deep, entertaining reflections on the memoir you are reading for your book club and your own creative nonfiction writing.

As you read your memoir and begin writing your own creative nonfiction pieces, you will track your thoughts and reflections in short, weekly blog posts. The goal is for you to notice and write about how the memoirs you’ve read are influencing your own writing. Beyond just writing a memoir and reading a memoir, you are being asked to think about the writing process and connect your own writing to that of others.

Due Dates

Blog 1 due Monday, September 12

            First round of comments due Friday, September 16

Blog 2 due Monday, September 19

            Second round of comments due Friday, September 23

Blog 3 due Monday, September 26

            Third round of comments due Friday, September 30

Blog 4 due Monday, October 3

            Final round of comments due Friday, October

Requirements

• You must write an entry each week, to be posted no later than Monday before your English class starts.
• Your post must have a title.
• Each post should be at least 300 words. You must use an image, video, or link in at least one of your four posts.
• Your posts should be written in your own voice using "I." This is casual writing, so you don't need to pretend you're writing a literary analysis essay in every entry. Just make it sound the way you talk.
• In addition to posting each week, you need to write a meaningful comment on someone else's post to extend the discussion. This is due by the following Friday. This comment should be at least 50 words. 

Blogging Choice Board

Each week, choose any of the options below, or make up your own! These are just jumping-off points. As long as your post is connecting reading memoir to writing memoir, you are allowed to use it!

Close Reading: Find a quote or line from your book club memoir or a reading we did in class. Explain why you loved that line. Try to get into why you think it's well written. What about the words and their order make it so awesome?	Write-Alike: Find a scene in the book that you feel a personal connection to. Describe the scene from the book and then write a scene from your life in the style of the author that relates.	Character Descriptions: Who is your favorite character so far? Find a character description. Copy it out into your post. Then explain how the author creates great characterization. Next, explain who in your life might be fun to write a description of. Write one yourself!
Links and Videos: Find a video, an article, an interview with a author of your book, or another blog post from another site that relates to your thinking about memoir as a genre of writing. Insert the link into your post. Describe what the video or article says about memoir and what your perspective is on that same topic.	Reflections on Truth-Telling: What section do you think the author had to make up or exaggerate or fill in their memory? Why? What would be the advantages/disadvantages of using this technique in your own writing?	Your Words Become Mine: Find a sentence in the memoir you love. Type it into your blog post in quotes. Then, using that first line as your own, write a short creative nonfiction piece about your own life.
Literary Device Admiration: What is one literary device the author of your memoir uses really, really well? Describe how the author uses that device and what its effect is on the meaning of the story. Give a few quotes from the reading to show your fellow bloggers. Then, write about how you might (or might not) use that same device in your own writing. Consider looking for: flashback, foreshadowing, symbolism, nice sentence structure, motifs (repeated images or phrases), chapter breaks, description, imagery, slanted imagery, characterization, dialogue, and the list goes on . . .	Voice: What is the personality of the writing. How does the author use word choice, humor, punctuation, or other literary devices to help that personality come through?	Reflections on Writing: This is a catch-all post. What do you think are some of the problems memoir writers face? What do you wonder about the process of writing a memoir? As you are thinking about writing your own memoir, what are some of the big hang-ups you are worried about?