Assignment #1: Influences on Your Identity: Examining A Life Experience

 

Assignment #1: Influences on Your Identity:  Examining A Life Experience  Length:  2.5 - 4 pages                                                         Points: 50

 

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his [her, their] experience.                                                                                          --James Baldwin

 

Personal identity is what makes us unique, complex individuals.  In fact, we have many life experiences that have made us who we are today, for better or worse, no matter if we are eighteen or eighty.  We’ve lived with or encountered influential people—our parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, musical artists, writers, and so on—who have had a serious impact on us, negative, positive, or somewhere in between.  We’ve experienced events/places as we have grown up, for example, moving to a new city/country, getting a job, encountering a conflict, competing on a team, that have taught us something.  Perhaps your gender is or race/ethnicity is a big part of what defines you.  Maybe a certain object, like a family heirloom, has deeply affected you, to name a couple more influences. 

 

Clearly some of these influences stand out more fully, have affected us more deeply, so

for our first assignment, you will have the opportunity to explore what has changed you, affected you immensely, impacted the direction or focus of your life, and made you you.  Remember: I’m trying to get to know you and your writing, so give it your best shot!

 

Possible Topics:

            You definitely want to pick a topic on which you have a solid amount to write, but also remember NOT to write about your entire life.  Try to stay focused on one main event, person, artifact, place, ideology, choice, others’ perception, etc., yet know that you may find yourself blending a couple topics that are connected and that’s okay.  Here are some ideas.

 

• To what extent has your family’s expectations/culture/ ideology affected your family and thus you? (e.g. “The Joy of Reading and Writing…”)

 

• To what extent has a person in your life—either close or distant—made an impression on you, changed the direction of your life or opened your eyes to something?   (“My So-called Life,” “Eleven”)

 

• To what extent has a trip, discovery, place or job/volunteer position made a significant impact on you?  How has it affected what you do with your life, how you see others, what values you might have?  How has it affected your future goals? (“I pulled a 1,500-year-old-sword…”)

 

• To what extent has a physical or other of “difference” or ordeal shaped how you live and who you’ve become?  What types of emotions has it sent you through?  (“The Trauma of Immigrating…”)

 

• To what extent has a certain choice, lack of choice or a secret dictated the direction of your life?  What path has it kept you on or prevented you from taking?  Did you have a particularly influential coming of age experience (“My So-called Life,” (“The Trauma of Immigrating…”)

 

• To what extent has an experience(s) with your race, ethnicity, gender, religion, OR socio-economic standing affected your identity?  What has it taught you or made you realize? (“One Asian Writer’s Lesson…”)

 

• What else can we add here?

           

Assignment Requirements:

Ø  This first paper will NOT be a full essay with introduction, thesis, body paragraphs and a conclusion, but it will be a narrative plus a conclusion-like final paragraph or paragraphs.  You will begin right away with your story, which will include several paragraphs about the influential experience(s).

 

Ø  In order to be specific, incorporate the 5 W's—who, what, where, when, how—so your reader can really picture what happened.  You’ll also want to include sensory details and/or a dialogue, or other specifics to bring your story to life.  (Look to our readings as models.)

 

Ø  The description of your life experience will need to be a first-person narrative, and these paragraphs in your paper should come in mostly chronological order.  Make sure your reader is able to move through your paper easily.

 

Ø  For the conclusion, you’ll need a discussion of what you have learned from this experience, in other words, your reflection on what happened.  What do you know more about?  How has it changed you and others, and/or how have you stayed the same?  What do you take away or learn from what you describe?  Why is this experience important?  What did you learn from your experience by analyzing it?  Fully explain what the reading helps you understand about your own life, and now that you've given it more thought and written about it, what your own experience helps you better understand about the reading.  Do you have a different understanding of people or how the world functions?  Overall, how has this experience affected you?  (This can also be more than one paragraph). 

 

Ø  You should make at least TWO connections to the readings, similarities, differences, or something else.  You will want to include at least TWO direct quotes in the proper format and a discussion on how/why you are using the author’s words.  (We’ll be going over this in class.)

 

Your essay will be evaluated on how well you include the above requirements and how you address the components of the assignment—organization (paragraph breaks and chronological order), support (detailed story + use of quotes), analysis (the conclusion-like final part of the paper), sentence structure, grammar, proofreading.

 

Final draft due:  _______________ (with 3 adjective clauses & at least 3 vocabulary words underlined)