Reading Responses
Each week, half the class will post informal reading responses to the main page of this site by Monday. The other half will post comments on at least two of the posts before class Wednesday. These conversations will give you a sense of what’s on each other’s minds–and no doubt spill over into class discussion. You have a lot of flexibility with the responses. The following questions are designed to stimulate your thinking, but don’t feel beholden to address them if you’ve got other ideas:

• What formal elements in the writing may be instructive for your own writing?
• What specific techniques does the writer use to blend memoir and biography?
• Does the writer have a tendency to use particular rhetorical techniques or patterns of language?
• What is the relationship between narrator, subject, and audience?
• How does the structure work? What’s the larger structure? Does the writer use distinctive “local” techniques to create structure within structure. How long are chapters? When do we learn important information? Why there? What’s left out? What difference does this make?
• What research did the writer conduct? How does the writer’s approach to integrating research shape your reading experience?
• Does the writer follow what scholar Paul John Eakin calls “the rules of the game” when it comes to autobiography? Does the writer break them? Or play with them in interesting ways? Or transform them?

Aim for 2-4 paragraphs. And I really mean it when I say these reading responses are informal. The idea is to spark all our thinking.

Footnote
Imagine another writer has written a book that features your chosen person in a minor role. This writer loves footnotes, long ones. Imagine the tone, style, and form of the work. Give it a name and a hypothetical author. Then write a footnote about your chosen person for that imaginary book. Your footnote may be scholarly, as in many biographies; it may be snide, as in some other biographies (!); it may be playful, as in the fiction of Siri Hustvedt or David Foster Wallace. Aim for 150-200 words.

Obituary, Preface, or Wikipedia Entry
Write an obituary, preface, or Wikipedia entry about your choice of figure. As you compose, consider the relation between common conventions of the genre, your chosen person, and yourself as a writer. Are the conventions and person a good fit? Might the conventions need to be stretched or tailored to the person? What can you, as a writer, bring to make the piece distinctive? Aim for 500-750 words.

 

Social Media Posts
Choose a social media platform and create a series of five posts representing your chosen person. You might create first-person posts in the guise of the person or third-person ones in a voice you develop. Consider the aims of the account. Are the posts publicity? Do they seek to create awareness about an underknown figure? Do they memorialize the person? Are they fan-driven? Do they seek to create community?

Memoir, Biographical, or Hybrid Essay (or Podcast)
Write autobiographical, biographical, or hybrid essay that features your chosen person (though that person may or may not be the central figure). You’ll consult with me and your classmates as you develop the essay. The form, style, and tone will be different for everybody, but you should consider them careful–especially as they represent relations between you and your subject. You might approach the projects as a stand-a-lone essay or a book chapter. Aim for 3000 – 4000 words. You have the alternate option to create a podcast rather than an essay. If you do this, consult with me and we’ll work out the parameters.