Caroline Porterunit

7/30/2019 Caroline Porterunit

1/12

Porter

Caroline Porter

ENGL 801

Dr. Reiff

5 November 2012

Memoir and Autobiography in Freshman Composition

Although first-year composition classes are not comprised entirely of 18-year-old

freshman, the majority of students are both young and new to college. The composition teacher,

then, must rise to the occasion and simultaneously introduce these students to college writing,

andintroduce them to the college classroom, assuage their fears of higher-level writing, and, at

some level, ensure that the students feel secure and comfortable enough to take the riskand

attempt to write in new ways. Memoir and Autobiography (for the purposes of this paper, I will

be using these terms interchangeably) present an ideal way of helping the teacher accomplish

these goals. As the first assignment in first-year composition classes, autobiographical writing

allows students to ease their way into writing using their own experiences. They are equipped,

even as they enter the college classroom for the first time, with the tools needed to write memoir.

This assignment, as research suggests, leaves students feeling confident, connected to their

classmates and teacher, and primed to tackle the more traditional, academic papers that

College English classes will, inevitably, require.

The Theoretical Rationale for Memoir

Almost every article I encountered arguing for the inclusion of memoir in the freshman

composition class begins with a fervent argument against naysayers, those who claim that

memoir is not academic enough. Each article confronts this argument differently, but the

common thread amongst these scholars defenses seems to be that memoir allows students to

1


2/12

Porter

write critically about, or to analyze, their own experiences. However, each scholar adds his or

her own unique argument in support of memoir. In his seminal 1958 piece, The Autobiography

as Creative Writing, Ronald Cutler, first and foremost, argues for the use of autobiography in

freshman composition classes because, he insists, freshman are uprooted from their homes and

need the catharsis autobiography provides. Critic Sandra Wyngaard agrees, and also notes that

during this time of transition, a preoccupation with the self develops in freshman. Teacher must,

she stresses, take advantage of this preoccupation. Both Cutler and Wyngaard agree, though, that

autobiographys most salient byproduct is the impetus it provides for students to think critically

about the self. Students begin to reflect on their personalities as a process rather than an

immobile, congenital structure.

Megan Brown takes this discussion of the self further in her article, The Memoir as

Provocation: A Case for Me Studies in Undergraduate Classes. She accepts Cutlers

proposition that students will recognize the construction of the self as a given, and suggests that

memoir also encourages students to question and critique American culture, a culture intensely

focused on the self. Students will start to problematize and analyze the ways identities and

life stories for the purposes of the class are commodified and consumed in American culture.

Brown posits that this process of analysis will ultimately prompt students to become critical of

other texts, that the experience of analyzing and critiquing their own life will leave with them a

desire to analyze, to look deeper.

Browns article starts to take a practical turn, but a significant subset of articles on this

subject focus almost exclusively on autobiographys ability to teach students concrete skills that

will transferto other types of writing. In his article on Autobiography in composition classes,

Greg Barton represents the beginning of the move within the context of the texts included in

2


3/12

Porter

my annotated bibliography toward practical application. He discusses the process by which

students investigate the backwaters their seemingly meaningless memories and find ways

to ascribe new meaning onto these memories. But this process is not complete with the discovery

or creation of new meaning; the student must translate this. They are compelled to articulate this

process and this new meaning in writing. Barton hints that students must make deliberate

rhetoricalchoices, and that they are more likely to make effective rhetorical choices because they

are, after all, trying to communicate their own life experiences.

Whereas Barton only hints at rhetorics prominent place in autobiography, critic Margaret

Byrd Boegeman illustrates its distinct role in detail. Boegeman balks at the suggestion that

narrative is a less rigorous form of writing than academic analysis. She asserts that there are

many rhetorical devices at work: thematic unity, Aristotelian wholeness, balance, proportion, and

selectivity (664). Robert L Root takes the idea that students must make rhetorical choices while

writing autobiography further by suggesting that students must first draft their experiences, but

they must also learn to re-draft them, to revise them, to sharpen their writing, to make use of

more rhetorical strategies with each revision.

While Barton, Boegeman, and Root highlight the practical uses of memoir insofar as it

results in concrete improvement of student writing, Alys Culhane provides a practical way of

bringing these changes about. In her article, Memory, Memoir, and Memorabilia: A Generative

Exercise, Culhane explores the connection between memory and memorabilia. She proposes a

course in which memorabilia is used to trigger memories, the most important part of the

process. Similarly, Sandra Wyngaard details an activity in which students create a memento

box, a shoebox of things that are of importance to them. Similarly, in her article on teaching

memoir, Carolyn Kraus advises students to search outside of themselves for material, and

3


4/12

Porter

recommends the use of documents (547). This brings in a component of research, but also draws

out a story. In Kraus, Culhanes, and Wyngaards models, students must explore the meaning

behind each object and participate in class-wide workshops. The discussion between students on

the significance of each students object(s) and of the memories associated with these objects

offer more possibilities for the memoir itself and creates a unified classroom.

The classroom remains largely overlooked in the majority of articles I annotated. Culhane

touches on its importance, but only as a kind of afterthought. However, both the physical space

the classroom itself and the dynamics, or the relationships that form within the space, must be

considered. These are practical concerns, perhaps the most practical in that this is the area the

teacher has the most control over. However, the only critic who fleshes out the importance of the

actual, physical classroom is Wyngaard. This may be because she focuses on high school

freshman. This distinction is important because it reveals a way of thinking about children as

students we tend to think of children as both selves and bodies, as embodied selves that

differs from the way we think of adults, or more specifically, adults as students. However, I

argue that Wyngaards attention to bodies and physical space is important, and that teachers and

pedagogical theorists mustthink of college students as both a mind to be shaped, taught,

explored, and a physical body, which should be comfortable, and which should be allowed

movement and freedom. Wyngaard allows physical movement in her classroom by placing her

students memento boxes at different places around the classroom, thereby allowing her students

to get up and move around, but also to interact with and to feel the objects. Wyngaard does not

ignore the importance of tactile exploration, and neither should teachers of college English.

While the physical classroom is largely disregarded, the classroom as a more abstract,

less physical space of connection is at the center of several articles on memoir and composition.

4


5/12

Porter

Rebecca Ruppert Johnson writes that autobiography helps students not only to gain an

understanding of themselves, but also of their classmates. The workshop model, which Ruppert

suggests employing in freshman composition, places students and teacher in the place of the

listener. This, she argues, levels the playing field; students and teacher become equal and

develop a sense of community and a sense of respect for one another.

Amy Kass, in her article Who am I? Autobiography and American Identity, extends the

abstract classroom space. She begins by pointing out, as others have, that autobiography spurs a

connection between students and teachers, but she goes further, arguing that the writing of

autobiography points ones perspective beyond oneself and ones classmates and onto the larger

world. In order to think about oneself, Kass observes, one must think about oneself in relation

to others (94). The students position themselves in relation to their family, their friends, but also

their culture, their beliefs, their nation, et cetera. They connect, in essence, to the larger human

experience.

In the course of these articles and chapters on Autobiography and Memoir in freshman

composition, scholars and critics point to its myriad of benefits. Students look inward; they

search their memories for meaning. Students discover and create new meanings for their

experiences, but they also recognize and analyze the changing, fluid nature of the self.

Students become suspicious of discourses that neatly package, commodify, and distribute the

self. Students must find new, rhetorically effective ways of communicating these thoughts. All

the while, students connect with each other through workshop and object-centered writing

activities. And, perhaps without realizing it, students look outward and begin to make

connections with the larger world. In learning about themselves, they learn about others, and

come a step closer to becoming tolerant, empathetic, and engaged citizens.

5


6/12

Porter

Application: The Memoir Unit

I propose a unit on Memoir and Autobiography in English 101. This should be the

first unit, and must come before any type of analysis or argumentative paper. I am in agreement

with the critical consensus that memoir provides an ideal introduction into college English and

teaches skills that will transfer into later units on analysis.

Goals:

1. Students will glean an understanding of the conventions of the memoir genre though theuse of outside readings.

2. Students will explore their own personal experiences and will be able to recognize

meaning in them.

3. Students will think critically about and reflect upon their experiences.4. Students will learn to employ rhetorical devices though the writing of their memoir.

5. Students will learn to translate memories into cogent writing.6. Students will participate in a writing community through workshop activities.

7. Students will respond to student and teacher feedback provided in workshop

through revision.

The Schedule:

Week One: Genre Conventions

M Read Pony Party and Luck from Lucy GrealysAutobiography of a Face. Write a one-

page response paper.

W Read Rhodesia 1976 from Alexandra FullersDont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight. Write a

one-page response paper: how does this differ from Grealys pieces? How is it similar?

F Read Start and Jackson from Rebecca WalkersBlack White and Jewish. Write a one

page response: how does Walker depict herself as a child. Why do you think she focused on

these specific memories? Hand out assignment prompt.

Week Two: Objects and Memory

M Bring to class an object of personal significance to you.

(In Class: 1. A class-wide presentation and discussion of these objects. Students should be free tomove around the room and interact with others objects. 2. Free-writing using the prompt This

object is important because.)

W Bring to class an old photograph of yourself or you and your family.

(In Class: 1. Free-writing using the prompt During this picture I was 2. Synthesize your

free-write from Monday and your photograph free-write into a single, page-long piece)

6


7/12

Porter

F Bring your finished your page-long memoir piece

(In class: 1. Draw a map of your childhood home, if youve had many, pick one. 2. If you like

your page-long memoir piece enough to work with it further, re-write it, and place your story inyour childhood home. Allow this to let new memories to surface, and weave them into your

piece. If you prefer to start fresh, free-write about a memory sparked by your map)

Week Three: Composing Your Memoir

M Come to class with 3 ideas or memories about which you would like to write.

(In Class 1. with partners 5 minutes spent writing about a memory, switch papers and haveyour partner underline the part which seems, to them, most interesting, switch back and expand

upon the underlined portion. Repeat. 2. Reflection were you surprised at what your partner

underlined? Do you feel that this led you into an interesting direction? Why or why not?

W Bring in your free-writing from Monday.

(In Class rewrite the free-writes from multiple perspectives. Write them from the perspective

of a family member, and then from the perspective of an objective, 3rd person narrator)

F - Before class time, settle on a subject for your memoir and write, at least, your first paragraph

(6-7 sentences). This does not have to remain your first paragraph, but it will provide a jumpingoff point.

(In Class 1. In groups of 4, share your paragraphs. Group members should provide feedback.

What did you want more of? What wasnt working for you? 2. Revision and writing. Rewriteyour first paragraph if you feel it needs revision and / or write your next paragraph)

Week Four: Workshops

Class will be canceled this week, and the students will sign up for a group workshop day.Students will email their drafts to their group members, and all drafts must be read by the day of

the workshop. Students must come to their workshop with a paragraph of feedback for each

memoir piece they have read. Workshops will consist of 4 students and the teacher. Students andteacher will sit in a circle; this will ensure ease of communication and will disallow any kind of

spatial hierarchy (i.e. teacher in the front, students in the back). The teacher will lead the

workshop, but the majority of feedback should come from the students. Each student gets 15-20minutes of feedback on their draft, after which they will be allowed to respond and ask questions.

Students will be encouraged to revise based on teacher and student suggestions. Assignment will

be due the following Monday.

7


8/12

Porter

Caroline Porter

ENGL 801

Dr. Reiff5 November 2012

Annotated Bibliography: Memoir and Autobiography in Composition Classes

Barton, Greg. Making a Place: Autobiography in Composition Classrooms.Language Arts

Journal of Michigan. 16.1 (2000) 27-30

Barton begins by describing the challenges he faced during the Autobiography Unit in his

Composition class. Despite his goals to turn his students from spectators into participants, he

describes unengaged students who fail to take inspiration from readings and activities andproduce stale, dry, and vapid writings. Barton spends the rest of the article giving practical

advise to potential teachers who wish to use autobiography in the classroom and detailing his and

the students success. He begins using in class writing exercises to prompt students to

examine the backwaters, their background, seemingly meaningless memories in a search forsomething that will become meaningful. After focusing in on the less obvious memories, which

are notthe traditional subjects about which student autobiographies are written, the students areleft with the job of making this event meaningful or as Barton puts it discovering elements of

meaning [by] investigating the raw material of [their] own [lives] and conveying that

meaning to the reader, thus making effective rhetorical choices. This meaning ispersonal, givingthe student both insight into their own life andensuring a level of engagement with their writing

that they might not have when writing an academic analysis paper.

Boegeman, Margaret Byrd. Lives and Literacy: Autobiography in Freshman Composition.College English. 41.6. (1980) 662-669.

Boegemans piece is extremely useful because it breaks down the controversy over usingmemoir and autobiography in the classroom. It methodically introduces objections, and then it

refutes each one. She starts by examining the most common objection to it, that personal writing

is too informal. Too informal, for Boegeman, is code for too little effort. Formality shesuggests, denotes laziness. However, she emphasizes that this is not necessarily true.

Autobiography can be careful and deliberate; it can be as formal as it needs to be. Next,

Boegeman tackles the first problem objection, which is the second most common objection.

She suggests, in response to this, that the use of the first person has pedagogical advantages.Students, she says, are reluctant to think for themselves, and the use of the first person forces

them to. Echoing another person is safer, Boegeman posits, but forcing the students to claim

their own opinions because it is important step in their intellectual independence. Finally, sheargues against the notion that narrative is not as rigorous a form of writing as academic writing.

But narration is notsimple; there are many rhetorical devices at work: thematic unity,

Aristotelian wholeness, balance, proportion, and selectivity. She ends by suggesting that if weteach autobiography rigorously, that the skills learned will transfer to writing for other

disciplines.

8


9/12

Porter

Brown, Megan. The Memoir as Provocation: A Case for Me Studies in Undergraduate

Classes. College Literature. 37.3 (2010) 120-142.

While acknowledging and responding to criticisms of memoir as both the cash-cow of

the moment and self-aggrandizing, inauthentic cries for attention, Brown offers insight into theusefulness of memoir inauthenticity included in contemporary composition and college

English classes. Despite her own reservations about teaching a memoir based writing class,

referring to the class to her colleagues as Me Studies and Self-Help 101, Brown finds waysto work these concerns into a course which encourages the questioning and critique of a culture

focused so intensely on the self. She argues that the memoir is in itself highly provocative; it

allows students to, as I mentioned earlier, problematize American cultures fixation on

individuality, but it also prompts students to think of the way these life stories arecommodified and consumed. This leads to discussions about the ways in which identities are

culturally created and incite debates about ethical issues, ultimately honing students analytical

skills. Thus, students become critical of readings in the class as well as their own life writing;

they begin to consider the importance of and develop a narrative voice, a skill that will transfer tothe academic analysis paper.

Culhane, Alys. Memory, Memoir, and Memorabilia: A Generative ExercisePedagogy:

Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture. 4.2

(2004). 310-312.

In this essay, Culhane imagines a course in which memoir would be tied to memory and

memorabilia, and offers a practical model for instructors who wish to teach memoir. Explicit in

the essay is Culhanes belief that memoir belongs in college writing classes; she argues first thatmemoir is a valid form of scholarly discourse, and second that memorabilia can and should be

used to trigger memories. Memories, she argues, are the most important part of the process.

Using objects to trigger memories, then, is an effective way of uncovering memories writingmaterial that one thought lost or irrelevant. Jewelry, shoes, and glasses: these things should be

considered when writing memoir. The students must ask themselves how did this object come

into my possession and why is it important to me? Culhane stresses that the teacher mustencourage the blurring of boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. A series of free-writes

should be used to construct dialogue; characters should be altered. Workshops are essential to the

process, and a conference with the teacher required. The most compelling suggestion Culhane

makes, though, is that the teacher must take part in the process. He or she should write a memoirpiece along with the class and must share it, workshop it, and revise it along with the students.

This creates a unified classroom and provides an example for the students.

Cutler, Ronald. The Autobiography as Creative Writing. College Composition and

Communication. 9.1 (1958). 38-41.

Cutler takes a different tack than the majority of authors who focus on memoir and its use

in freshman composition; he focuses on the use of autobiography in relation, primarily, to its

effect on the studentspsychologicalwell-being. While Megan Brown disputes the use of

memoir as a kind of self-help, insisting on its academic benefits rather than its personal ones,

9


10/12

Porter

Cutler maintains that freshman, uprooted from their homes and in a brand new place, needthe

release autobiography offers. However, Cutler does not stop with this argument. He also

proposes that autobiography is useful academically for college freshman. He admits that themajority of freshman autobiographies are a recitation of names and dates, but he offers a

solution, this prompt: How did I get to be the kind of person I think I am now? This prods

students to think critically about the self. It encourages reflection the self becomes, then, aproduct of various influences. Rather than a static structure, pre-built and unchanging, the

students begin to think of their personalities as a process. They are constructed, but then rebuilt

and changed; they shift according to what they meet. This kind of critical thinking, Cutlerstresses, is crucial to further study. And during students freshman year, when they are so

vulnerable, the autobiography serves a dual purpose: to comfort and to hone critical thinking

skills.

Johnson, Rebecca Ruppert. Autobiography and Transformative Learning: Narrative in Search of

Self.Journal of Transformative Education. 227.1 (2003) 227-244.

Johnson begins by describing what the average composition teacher looks for in studentessays: logical arguments with solid analysis and evidence. But what teachers get or at least

what Johnson received are personal essays, essays grounded in the students personalexperiences even if the assignment is a formal academic analysis paper. Johnson suggests that

teachers should work with this pattern rather than trying to change it. She then details her

experience using autobiography in her classes, arguing that its use in composition (and otherEnglish classes) helps students to understand themselves and other classmates. It asks students to

take risks, to expose their pasts to scrutiny. This, according to Johnson, both places other

students andthe teacher in the role of listener, thus making teacher and students equals, and

fosters students respect for each other. Johnson also notes that students feel more comfortablesharing their autobiographical work when teachers also share; so she encourages teachers to

share details of their personal life to, in essence, level the playing field. On a more academic

note, Johnson posits that students who write autobiographically must examine their familiarpasts critically, giving them a fresh perspective on something they thought they knew.

Kass, Amy A. Who Am I? Autobiography and American Identity College Teaching. 43.3(1995) 93-99.

Kass begins her piece by remarking upon undergraduates preoccupation with self. They

spend their time, Kass believes, asking themselves the same question: Who am I? Otherscholars have touched on this, and have expressed the same sentiment that Kass does, that

teachers should take advantage of this preoccupation. However, Kass differs from other scholars

in way she theorizes and channels this preoccupation. Kass argues that when students reflectupon their own lives, that they are automatically reflecting upon themselves in relation to others.

The meaning of these experiences, then, relies on how others react to them just as much as how

the students themselves react to them. This points beyond the self and asks students to makeconnections between themselves and the larger world. They being to reflect upon the

institutions, culture, and cultural beliefs that powerfully shaped [their lives]. Kass refers to this

as social self-consciousness, the awareness that humans are fundamentally cultural beings.

This source is useful because it, without trying, argues against the notion that the autobiography

10


11/12

Porter

is self-centered by nature. It highlights the ways in which self-reflection leads to larger

reflection.

Kraus, Carolyn. The Discovery that Changes Everything: Teaching Memoir Writing with

DocumentsPedagogy Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language,

Composition, and Culture. 9.3 (2009) 547-554.

This article is a helpful mixture of practical and theoretical information. Kraus

encourages the use of documents when searching for ideas for memoir writing. She emphasizesthat requiring students to search outside of themselves for material is crucial. This search for

documents and she recommends restricting documents to written records, certificates, essays,

baby books, love notes, diplomas, et cetera, with no photographs a lot is a type of research. She

aims to communicate to students that memoir requires research just as typical academic papersdo. Once the students find their documents, they must draw out a story. They examine these

texts, discuss them with the class, and wait for these documents to summon a memory; they

search for a new meaning. Kraus suggests that discussion and analysis (a goal of English 101 and

102) of these documents helps students realize that their lives are neither mundane norinconsequential. These documents help students link their or their familys private lives to

the larger social context. They help connect the students story to the wider story, to the humanexperience, and this, according to Kraus, is the basis of all successful memoir.

Root, Robert L. Variations on a Theme of Putting Nonfiction in Its Place.Pedagogy:

Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture. 4.2

(2004) 289-295.

Most relevant in Roots piece is his examination of the place of non-fiction, which heredefines as the written expression of, reflection on, and/or interpretation of observed,

perceived, or recollected experience A genre of literature made of writing which includes

the personal essay, the memoir and poetic prose texts generated by students in collegecomposition class [italics added], in English Studies. He argues that non-fiction actually

belongs in many subcategories, including literature, creative writing, and composition. Non-

fiction (a category in which memoir and autobiography belong) offers connection to the fullscope of the discipline. Root also offers more support for the inclusion of non-fiction, as he

defines it, in the composition curriculum. He draws on comments from his students, citing their

surprise with non-fictions ability to help them discover the meaning of their experiences. Root

summarizes this phenomenon in one pithy sentence: we write what we want to find out. So,essentially, by writing what you know, you will find out what you do not know. Root also

connects this process of discovery to revision. With each revision, the student has an epiphany.

Implicit in this argument is that students, when writing non-fiction, will learn the art of revision,that non-fiction writing will introduce them to revision in a relatively painless way. Roots article

supports the notion that the personal and the academic are and should be connected; they are not

in opposition.

Wyngaard, Sandra The Memoir Writing Project: Responding to the Developmental Needs of

Students. The English Journal. 87.3 (1998) 69-81.

11


12/12

Porter

Wyngaards article is about high school freshman rather than college freshman, but this

memoir project could easily be used in a composition class. Just as as Wyngaard points out

in her article high school freshman go through a transitional period [of] loneliness thatleads to preoccupation with the self, so to do college freshman. Wyngaard suggests that teachers

take advantage of this by attempting to channel it into a memoir. She presents a pre-writing

process that could easily be used in the composition classroom. There are daily journal entrieswhere students are asked to reflect on their first weeks as freshman. The teacher encourages

students to write about their feelings and thoughts rather than listing the events of their days; this

type of writing, Wyngaard hopes, will lead to a cathartic experience. Next, the students mustwrite from an altered point of view from a he/she perspective. Wyngaard theorizes that this

will help students examine their motivations. The third step before the actual writing begins is

the memento box. The students prepare a shoebox of things that are of importance to them. They

are prompted to pick objects that they would consider leaving to their descendents. The teacherthen displays the memento boxes anonymously in the classroom. Other students write their

comments about the contents of the boxes, and after this process, the owner of the memento box

must present the box to the class. According to Wyngaard, the similarities and contrasts

between the conclusions drawn by students [gives] students a clearer understand of themselvesas historical entities. The memoir comes together as a sort of amalgamation of these activities.

The students focus on recurring themes revealed by these activities, and this becomes the themeof the memoir.

Caroline,Your overview of teaching memoir/autobiography is outstanding and does one of the most

effective jobs that I have seen yet (with only four papers left) of synthesizing sources and

bringing these sources into dialogue with each other. As I was reading your paper, I could almost

imagine all of the authors gathered around a conference table or in a circle sharing their viewsand making connections/distinctions among their perspectives and approaches. In other words,

your knowledge and expertise (gained from your extensive research and compilation of a diverse

range of sources) are evidentin both your comprehensive and informative overview and yourinnovative and well-designed application. I hope you will have a chance to implement the unit

you designed, which clearly reflects the objectives and goals English 101 (you might have the

potential to further expand on the elements of critical thinking and cultural analysis defined byCutler and Brown). Overall, though, this is first-rate and was a pleasure to read!

Grade: A

Presentation: Both the style and substance of your presentation were excellent. Your presentation

was informative and comprehensive, moving from the main arguments against teaching memoir

and the responses noting the benefits. You also demonstrated excellent awareness of audience byeffectively connecting your topic to teaching for transfer and to English 101. Perhaps the

strongest part of the presentation was the very detailed and innovative application to the

classroom, which was broken down week by week and extremely well thought out, whichgenerated a lot of interest from the class. Overall, your presentation was well-developed and

well-delivered (your visuals were outstanding, and I loved the pics of Delores!).

Grade: A

12