My memoir- will need to detail an incident that took place at the very beginning of April of this year. I received a death and sexual assault threat from a student and was then viciously cyberbullied while at school. This level of trauma and harassment led me on a downward spiral that then triggered anxiety, depression, and extreme paranoia. Write a memoir moment that is 1,200 to 1,450 words in length about this tumultuous event. The best memoir is informed by intensely meaningful personal experiences. Therefore, you will want to reflect on your life. Look for moments where the experience cast a particularly insightful light on a specific topic, idea, or relationship.
Take care when selecting what to write about. Many people find it hard to write something original about the common days that define their lives, like when they got married. They have seen them portrayed too often in the media, and they see them through standardized lenses, rather than through their own eyes.
No outside research is required for this assignment, and it is unlikely that you will want to include any. Your goal is to transmute your experience into emotionally powerful and meaningful art. Read a number of strong personal essays or memoir to figure out how these authors dramatized an actual event and wrote about it in ways that made the work beautiful and powerful.
Include the following requirements:
It should focus on a single event. This is because longer pieces (e.g. your childhood, your relationship with your grandmother, your entire pregnancy, your 5 years in the Air Force) cannot fit into the scope of the assignment. Choose a moment in time (a day, an afternoon, a three-hour game) and take the reader on a “deep dive” of the experience.
Write about the event in first person and in an emotionally moving fashion.
Use dialogue when possible to show character development and bring the reader more intimately into the moment.
It should be personal to you, not another person, even if they are in the event.
It should be written in a way that is accessible to the outside reader. In other words, while it should be written in first-person POV, it cannot be a diary or journal written only for you.
Because it is memoir, it should be factually true.
Use extensive reflection techniques throughout.
Do not share your surface thoughts on this topic, but rather, reflect on its meaning and importance.
Format your assignment according to appropriate course-level guidelines.
Submit your assignment as a Word document.
