In this first paper, which is a personal narrative essay, you will tell the story of your life using music, by creating a soundtrack.
For your guidance, please consider the Wikipedia definition of a “soundtrack”: “A soundtrack[2] is recorded sound accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film, video, or television presentation; or the physical area of a film that contains the synchronised recorded sound.[1]”
You will create a collection of songs to be the “soundtrack” of your life. How many you choose, and how you arrange them, is up to you. Generally though, think about using this set of songs to as the background sound of the story of your life. And remember how much space you have; work toward taking on enough material to have something to say, but not taking on so much material that you can’t begin to cover it in the required space with any depth.
We wil spend two weeks on this essay. You will complete a proposal, which will receive my commentary, and a final draft. After grading, you will have ONE chance to revise the finished paper, if needed, before the end of the course.
General Guidelines:
In the opening paragraph, introduce yourself briefly, autobiographically.
In the second paragraph/section (this may require more than one paragraph), explain the soundtrack that you’ve chosen to explain your life to your “listeners”—in this case, your classmates. Some things you should address: 1. What is this soundtrack and why are you doing it? 2. What are your goals for the project? What do you want your readers/listeners to take away from your soundtrack, or learn from it?
In subsequent paragraphs, introduce major events of your life and relate a song to each event. Each event and song combination should result in one paragraph or so.
You may organize your material in whatever way you feel is best; that is, you can work chronologically if you like, but you don’t have to if some other arrangement works better for your essay (for instance, you could organize by genre, or year of song publication, etc.) It’s up to you, ultimately, and how your paper is arranged will be shaped organically by the purpose of your essay/what you are ultimately saying with your soundtrack.
Note, also, that I’m using the term “soundtrack” loosely. You may have several songs listed/matched to the various turning points of your life But if ONE song sums up your life and you want to write about just that, feel free. With narrative, there is a good bit of leeway in how you arrange and focus things. Think about the way the “soundtrack” of songs helps tell the story in a movie–that’s what you’re going for here.
For your conclusion, thank your “listeners” (readers), and sum up what this project has meant to you—and this will include, necessarily, considering what you want your readers/listeners to take away from your essay (put another way, what you want them to learn from it, or what you want them to consider).
Basic Requirements:
LENGTH: The proposal should be at least 500 words long; the final draft should be at least 1500 words long.
FORMAT: You should double space your paper, use 1” margins, and use normal-sized 12-point font (Times New Roman or something similar) that is easily readable. Pages should be numbered in the upper right hand corner along with your last name. Give your paper an engaging title.
CITATION: All songs you list in your soundtrack need to be properly identified/attributed. Song titles, because they are considered “short works,” need to be placed in quotation marks. When you quote lines from particular songs, those need to be properly cited also (we’ll discuss how to do this in class). Songwriters/performers, once introduced fully, should be referred to by their last names. At the end of your paper, you will need to create a Works Cited list in MLA format which lists all songs mentions and properly cites any additional outside material you’ve used.
OUTSIDE MATERIAL: If you find an essay or interview or other material relevant to your essay and want to reference or quote it, it must be properly cited in MLA format and included on your Works Cited list.
