Donna's Directions for Students

Here are the instructions for your first short assignment in Introduction to Creative Nonfiction:

Look up the word "mnemonic" on http://www.wikipedia.com/

1. Post your interpretation of the definition on our class blog. Do not copy the definition from the website. Rather, exit out of the site, and write the definition in your own words.
2. After you have posted your definition, compare yours to two of your classmates' definitions. Respond to the writers of those definitions, noting any differences or similarities or nuances. The purpose of this step is to understand how definitions have both a denotation (a dictionary definition) and a connotation (....). Do steps 1, 2, and 3 by Wednesday at noon.
3. Next, read the paragraph on "Memory and Materiality" I have posted here: "Memory, apparently so immaterial and personal and elusive, is always implicated in materiality, whether it be the materiality of sound, stone, text, garment, integrated circuits and circuit boards, or the the materiality of our very bodies -- the synapses and electrons of our brains and our nervous systems. Memory is evoked by the senses -- smell, taste, touch, sound -- and encoded in objects or events with particular meaning for the narrator. In the Confessions, Augustine's memory of stealing pears from a tree is imbued with the sense-awakening qualities of the pears that momentarily overcome him in writing that moment. In the early twentieth century, the aroma of the madeleine stirs Marcel Proust's narrator as a physiological conduit imaginatively returning him to a scene of his past. And later in the century Vladimir Nabokov exercises a fiercely aestheticized mode of visualizing memory in mnemonic images of the past of his childhood in Russia. In Speak, Memory: A Memoir, Nabokov associates his fascination with entomology and butterflies with his art of remembering in pictures and words" (Smith and Watson 21).
4. Recalling the examples in the paragraph, make a list of five material things that evoke memories for you (your personal mnemonics). For example, when I smell/taste raspberries, I am immediately reminded of my grandmother making raspberry pie, rolling out the dough she has made with lard, which makes the flakiest crust...When I hear the song "Stairway to Heaven" or "Color My World," I am returned to my high school gymnasium with its crepe paper flowers and wrist corsages and nuns looming in a chaperoning frenzy. Post your list of five mnemonics on the blog.
5. Using one of the mnemonics from your list as a prompt, write a draft of a story in the blog. That is, tell us about a story/memory that is triggered by your mnemonic. Though the writing you post to the blog for this part of the assignment will be short and will be true, remember to use some of the elements of fiction, including scenes, characters, dialogue, imagery, concrete details. Post by Friday at noon.
6. After you have read all of the posts for this assignment, write a one-paragraph thought letter to the class explaining your understanding of the connection of memory and materiality. Bring this letter to class on Monday. Be prepared to present your letter to the class.
7. You will be graded on the quality of your engagement with the steps listed above and on the clarity of thought and grammatical correctness of your thought letter.