RWS305 San Diego State University Memoir Paper Please see attached documents for all the material/prompt required to finish the assignment.MEMOIR: I want t

RWS305 San Diego State University Memoir Paper Please see attached documents for all the material/prompt required to finish the assignment.MEMOIR: I want this essay to be talking about the time I traveled to Bali, Indonesia, it was my first time traveling outside the country and overseas, I traveled in January, 2019 (is this an appropriate topic?). 3.2 Description
The Purpose of Description in Writing
Writers use description in writing to make sure that their audience is fully immersed in
the words on the page. This requires a concerted effort by the writer to describe the
world through the use of sensory details.
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, sensory details are descriptions that appeal to our
sense of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. The use of sensory details provides you
the greatest possibility of relating to your audience and thus engaging them in your
writing, making descriptive writing important not only during your education but also
during everyday situations. To make your writing vivid and appealing, avoid empty
descriptors if possible. Empty descriptors are adjectives that can mean different things
to different people. Good, beautiful, terrific, and nice are examples. The use of such
words in descriptions can lead to misreads and confusion. A good day, for instance, can
mean far different things depending on one’s age, personality, or tastes.
EXERCISE 4
On a separate sheet of paper, describe the following five items in a short paragraph. Use at
least three of the five senses for each description.
• Night
• Beach
• City
• Dinner
• Stranger
The Structure of a Description Essay
Description essays typically describe a person, a place, or an object using sensory
details. The structure of a descriptive essay is more flexible than in some of the other
rhetorical modes. The introduction of a description essay should set up the tone and
focus of the essay. The thesis should convey the writer’s overall impression of the
person, place, or object described in the body paragraphs.
The organization of the essay may best follow spatial order, which means an
arrangement of ideas according to physical characteristics or appearance. Depending
on what the writer describes, the organization could move from top to bottom, left to
right, near to far, warm to cold, frightening to inviting, and so on. For example, if the
subject were a client’s kitchen in the midst of renovation, you might start at one side of
the room and move slowly across to the other end, describing appliances, cabinetry,
and so on. Or you might choose to start with older remnants of the kitchen and progress
to the new installations. Or maybe start with the floor and move up toward the ceiling.
EXERCISE 5
On a separate sheet of paper, choose an organizing strategy and then execute it in a short
paragraph for three of the following six items:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Train station
Your office
Your car
A coffee shop
Lobby of a movie theater
Mystery Option*
*Choose an object to describe but do not indicate it. Describe it, but preserve the
mystery.
Writing a Description Essay
Choosing a subject is the first step in writing a description essay. Once you have
chosen the person, place, or object you want to describe, your challenge is to
write an effective thesis statement to guide your essay. The remainder of your
essay describes your subject in a way that best expresses your thesis.
Remember, you should have a strong sense of how you will organize your essay.
Choose a strategy and stick to it. Every part of your essay should use vivid
sensory details. The more you can appeal to your readers’ senses, the more they
will be engaged in your essay. You can read a sample essay at the end of this
section.
EXERCISE 6
On a separate sheet of paper, choose one of the topics that you started in Exercise 5
and expand it into a five-paragraph essay. Expanding on ideas in greater detail can be
difficult. Sometimes it is helpful to look closely at each of the sentences in a summary
paragraph. Those sentences can often serve as topic sentences to larger paragraphs.
Mystery Option: Here is an opportunity to collaborate. Please share with a classmate
and compare your thoughts on your mystery descriptions. Did your classmate correctly
guess your mystery topic? If not, how could you provide more detail to describe it and
lead them to the correct conclusion?
Sample Description Essay
In the following student essay, notice how the writer uses sensory details to describe not only
the visual appearance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s tomb, but also the experience of visiting
such a historically significant and emotionally moving monument. Pay particular attention to the
organization of the description; how does the author move us around the monument and
describe its characteristics? Is it effective?
Sharif Ray Professor Smith English 1101
11 June 2014
The King’s Tomb
The water is always so beautiful, a hypnotic shade of baby blue, with a few autumn colored leaves
floating in the ripples made by the wind. This isn’t a natural body of water. No wildlife swim in the
shallow waves, but this water is as full of life as any ocean. In the middle of what is fittingly called the
Reflecting Pool lies the closest thing African Americans have ever had to royalty. Here lie the remains of
Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King.
Nestled between the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change and the original Ebenezer Baptist Church
is a beautiful white marble monument, warmly bathed in the lights circling the tomb of our late civil
rights leaders. Following Dr. King’s assassination in April 1968, he was first interred at South View
Cemetery, a final resting place largely reserved for African Americans during that period. It took nearly a
decade before he was exhumed and placed in the beautiful ivory stone structure that he now shares
with his beloved wife Coretta. The tomb, erected in 1977, sits within the south end of the Reflecting
Pool. Seemingly suspended on the bright blue water, the tomb displays scriptures that only capture a
small portion of the legacy left by these great leaders. Engraved on Dr. King’s portion reads, “Free at
last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty I’m free at last!” from his pivotal “I Have a Dream” speech given
during the March on Washington in 1963. I can’t help but attempt to recite the mantra in my head with
the same bravado and conviction as Dr. King had when he gave the speech over fifty years ago. While
the saying is a beautiful incantation, fit for a King, the cost at which that freedom was attained is still
heartbreaking.
In a scene reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, who passed away in January 2006
after a prolonged illness, lies next to her slain husband. For a short period following her death Mrs. King
was interred in a smaller yet equally beautiful tomb directly across from her late husband. Spectacular
floral arrangements surrounded her tomb as scores of mourners came from afar to pay their respects to
the First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement. In November 2006, she was laid to rest in a beautiful new
tomb aside her husband. The words “And now abide Faith, Hope, Love, These Three, but the greatest of
these is Love,” emblazon her final resting place. No truer instance could describe her legacy.
Auburn Avenue, shrouded in darkness, is void of people aside from the few vagrants that aimlessly roam
the streets. Heat from the Eternal Flame warms my back as I stare off into space. The brilliant glow of
the LED lights strategically placed around the tomb and the amber flicker of the Eternal Flame are the
only lights that seem to suit this moment. Kneeling as if I’m preparing to pray, I take a moment to
reflect. Through my clenched eyes I can hear the soft splashes of the water, the gas fueled roar of the
Eternal Flame. The ambient noise of car horns, traffic and construction fade to nearly a whisper. I
envision the March on Washington. I can feel the sting of water hoses pelting my black skin. I can hear
the sharp sonics of police dogs barking. The feeling is overwhelming. My eyelashes clump together from
the tears winning their battle against my eyelids. Nearby is a place of worship, a place where anyone can
still feel the spirit of past congregations, a place where the walls hold almost as much history as any
Smithsonian exhibit.
Just a few feet away sits the original Ebenezer Baptist Church, a beautiful, rustic old building left largely
intact from the days of Atlanta’s past. Walking inside is like stepping into a time warp, instantly sending
you to the heart of the Civil Rights Movement. With the exception of a few strategically placed speakers,
the church is left in its pure form. Dr. King’s voice echoes through wooden pews playing his famous
“Drum Major” speech, given during his final sermon at Ebenezer on February 4, 1968. With closed eyes,
I have difficulty telling what era I am in. Given with almost Machiavellian prediction and passion, ten
minutes engulfed with his powerful words makes me feel as though I’ve been baptized, born again.
Surrounded with reminders of our history’s darkest time, this place brings me peace. There’s an aura in
this place. A powerful spirit that infiltrates my conscience with thoughts of struggle, loss and freedom.
The reality of this place forces my mind to reevaluate my own
mortality. Even with the knowledge of how Dr. King was vilified, degraded, and executed, his death
serves as a shining beacon of light. A lone ray of sun through the seemingly endless cloud of racism and
intolerance. Coretta’s grace, beauty and resilience in the face of unspeakable tragedy and injustice is
incomparable. Her social work and philanthropy should be an influence to women of all walks of life.
The legacy that Dr. and Mrs. King leave behind is an unfulfilled one. Equality in America has improved
since Dr. King’s assassination but his dream is still unrealized. There is turmoil within the King family
regarding funding and management of the King Memorial, leaving the future of this serene place
uncertain. Engraved on the Stone of Hope, a newly completed Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in
Washington, D.C., reads, “Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope.” Although we still have a
mountain to climb, The King’s Tomb is surely my Stone of Hope.
Family Dinner
September 3 & 10, 2007 Issue
Sixty-nine Cents
Russian immigrant’s childhood desire to eat at McDonald’s
By Gary Shteyngart
August 27, 2007
When I was fourteen years old, I lost my Russian accent. I could, in theory, walk up to a girl and
the words “Oh, hi there” would not sound like Okht Hyzer, possibly the name of a Turkish
politician. There were three things I wanted to do in my new incarnation: go to Florida, where I
understood that our nation’s best and brightest had built themselves a sandy, vice-filled paradise;
have a girl, preferably native-born, tell me that she liked me in some way; and eat all my meals
at McDonald’s. I did not have the pleasure of eating at McDonald’s often. My parents believed
that going to restaurants and buying clothes not sold by weight on Orchard Street were things
done only by the very wealthy or the very profligate, maybe those extravagant “welfare queens”
we kept hearing about on television. Even my parents, however, as uncritically in love with
America as only immigrants can be, could not resist the iconic pull of Florida, the call of the
beach and the Mouse.
And so, in the midst of my Hebrew-school winter vacation, two Russian families crammed into a
large used sedan and took I-95 down to the Sunshine State. The other family—three members in
all—mirrored our own, except that their single offspring was a girl and they were, on the whole,
more ample; by contrast, my entire family weighed three hundred pounds. There’s a picture of us
beneath the monorail at EPCOT Center, each of us trying out a different smile to express the déjàvu feeling of standing squarely in our new country’s greatest attraction, my own megawatt grin
that of a turn-of-the-century Jewish peddler scampering after a potential sidewalk sale. The
Disney tickets were a freebie, for which we had had to sit through a sales pitch for an Orlando
time-share. “You’re from Moscow?” the time-share salesman asked, appraising the polyester cut
of my father’s jib.
“Leningrad.”
“Let me guess: mechanical engineer?”
“Yes, mechanical engineer. . . . Eh, please Disney tickets now.”
The ride over the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach was my real naturalization ceremony. I
wanted all of it—the palm trees, the yachts bobbing beside the hard-currency mansions, the
concrete-and-glass condominiums preening at their own reflections in the azure pool water
below, the implicit availability of relations with amoral women. I could see myself on a balcony
eating a Big Mac, casually throwing fries over my shoulder into the sea-salted air. But I would
have to wait. The hotel reserved by my parents’ friends featured army cots instead of beds and a
half-foot-long cockroach evolved enough to wave what looked like a fist at us. Scared out of
Miami Beach, we decamped for Fort Lauderdale, where a Yugoslav woman sheltered us in a
faded motel, beach-adjacent and featuring free UHF reception. We always seemed to be at the
margins of places: the driveway of the Fontainebleau Hilton, or the glassed-in elevator leading to
a rooftop restaurant where we could momentarily peek over the “Please Wait to Be Seated” sign
at the endless ocean below, the Old World we had left behind so far and yet deceptively near.
To my parents and their friends, the Yugoslav motel was an unquestioned paradise, a lucky coda
to a set of difficult lives. My father lay magnificently beneath the sun in his red-and-black striped
imitation Speedo while I stalked down the beach, past baking Midwestern girls. “Oh, hi there.”
The words, perfectly American, not a birthright but an acquisition, perched between my lips, but
to walk up to one of those girls and say something so casual required a deep rootedness to the hot
sand beneath me, a historical presence thicker than the green card embossed with my thumbprint
and freckled face. Back at the motel, the “Star Trek” reruns looped endlessly on Channel 73 or
31 or some other prime number, the washed-out Technicolor planets more familiar to me than
our own.
On the drive back to New York, I plugged myself firmly into my Walkman, hoping to forget our
vacation. Sometime after the palm trees ran out, somewhere in southern Georgia, we stopped at a
McDonald’s. I could already taste it: The sixty-nine-cent hamburger. The ketchup, red and
decadent, embedded with little flecks of grated onion. The uplift of the pickle slices; the
obliterating rush of fresh Coca-Cola; the soda tingle at the back of the throat signifying that the
act was complete. I ran into the meat-fumigated coldness of the magical place, the larger
Russians following behind me, lugging something big and red. It was a cooler, packed, before
we left the motel, by the other mother, the kindly, round-faced equivalent of my own mother.
She had prepared a full Russian lunch for us. Soft-boiled eggs wrapped in tinfoil; vinigret, the
Russian beet salad, overflowing a reused container of sour cream; cold chicken served between
crisp white furrows of a bulka. “But it’s not allowed,” I pleaded. “We have to buy the food here.”
I felt coldness, not the air-conditioned chill of southern Georgia but the coldness of a body
understanding the ramifications of its own demise, the pointlessness of it all. I sat down at a table
as far away from my parents and their friends as possible. I watched the spectacle of the newly
tanned resident aliens eating their ethnic meal—jowls working, jowls working—the soft-boiled
eggs that quivered lightly as they were brought to the mouth; the girl, my coeval, sullen like me
but with a hint of pliant equanimity; her parents, dishing out the chunks of beet with plastic
spoons; my parents, getting up to use free McDonald’s napkins and straws while American
motorists with their noisy towheaded children bought themselves the happiest of meals.
My parents laughed at my haughtiness. Sitting there hungry and all alone—what a strange man I
was becoming! So unlike them. My pockets were filled with several quarters and dimes, enough
for a hamburger and a small Coke. I considered the possibility of redeeming my own dignity, of
leaving behind our beet-salad heritage. My parents didn’t spend money, because they lived with
the idea that disaster was close at hand, that a liver-function test would come back marked with a
doctor’s urgent scrawl, that they would be fired from their jobs because their English did not
suffice. We were all representatives of a shadow society, cowering under a cloud of bad tidings
that would never come. The silver coins stayed in my pocket, the anger burrowed and expanded
into some future ulcer. I was my parents’ son.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/09/03/sixty-nine-cents#ixzz0pihck7DS
RWS 305w
Amber Anaya
Project #2: The Memoir
Introduction:
This assignment asks that you explore a more descriptive, emotional style of
writing called memoir. Use the reading on structure of a memoir, the pieces by
Cisneros and Shteyngart linked to in our course text, as well as course lecture to
write your memoir.
Instructions:
There are several ways to focus your memoir. You can choose to focus on a
memory, a person, an event, a time of transition, or anything else that appeals to
you. But this memoir should be more of a snapshot than a life story. I don’t want
to know about everything that has ever happened to you up to this point. I want
you to choose some piece of your life that is meaningful and write about it in
great detail and description.
Using the pieces by Cisneros and Shteyngart linked to in our course text as
models, draw on personal or community/family memories and artifacts, as well as
public narratives, to recreate a specific time, moment, and place through
narration and description. Be sure to incorporate a bottom line to your essay—a
lesson learned or a moral to your story.
In your memoir, you are expected to:
?
?
?
Choose a topic that is appropriate for academic memoir writing (remember
that you will be sharing this with the entire class)
Use sharp details and vivid description in your memoir
Use Cisneros’ and Shteyngart’s pieces as a lens through which to write your
own memoir
?
?
?
?
?
Use your memoir to demonstrate a good understanding of this new writing
situation
Avoid clichés and stilted sentence structures and phrasing
Use proper grammar, proofread closely, and polish your writing
Create a strong, cohesive, and clear piece of writing
Incorporate a lesson learned or moral to your story
Other Guidelines:
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•
•
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Your memoir should be 5-6 pages long
It should be in Times New Roman, 12-point font, double spaced
Please use APA or MLA formatting guidelines for your memoir
If you use outside sources in your memoir, please use in-text citations and a
references or works cited page
Grading:
I will use a holistic scoring rubric to evaluate your paper that takes into account
your mastery of such facets of writing as organization, development, grammar,
mechanics, and usage. Adherence to assignment instructions and knowledge of
the memoir genre will also play a part in your grade.
Only Daughter
Sandra Cisneros
from Latina: Women’s Voices From the Borderlands. Edited by Lillian Castillo-Speed. New York:
Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Once, several years ago, when I was
just starting out my writing career, I was
asked to write my own contributor’s note for
an anthology1 I was part of. I wrote: “I am the
only daughter in a family of six sons. That
explains everything.”
Well, I’ve thought about that ever
since, and yes, it explains a lot to me, but for
the reader’s sake I should have written: “I am
the only daughter in a Mexican family of six
sons.” Or even: “I am the only daughter of a
Mexican father and a Mexican-American
mother.” Or: “I am the only daughter of a
working-c…
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