Essay Assignment #1:

Where Are You From?

English 104

Instructor Kathy Crutcher

Overview:

In this first unit we’ll explore the places that have shaped our identities. We are all products of particular places; we cannot escape the formative impact of the people, politics, religion, language, culture, and geography of where we’re from. Instead, let us examine and reflect upon those influences as a way to better understand our own subjectivities, our own selves.

Your Job:

Your job is to tell the story of a place that matters to you, and that somehow gives us a sense of “where you’re coming from.” Your chosen locale could be as broad as your entire hometown, or as specific as your childhood treehouse. It might be a private place—like a family home or particular room—or a public place—like a park or restaurant or church. You might choose a place that illustrates your relationship with any number of things: a certain community, with nature, with change, with family, with history. You should make this place come alive with vivid details and purposeful vignettes, but you should also (implicitly or explicitly) pose important underlying questions, and reflect upon your answer(s). Let me explain.

An essay is comprised of stories, but it is not only story. Instead, an essay marries the narrative power of story with the analytical power of reflection. Thus, on the surface, your essay will be about a particular place, but it must also have depth: it must raise meaningful universal questions with which you—and the reader—can grapple. We’ll discuss these concepts in further detail in class, but as you write, remember that you are creating layers of meaning, and that the best essays are those that illustrate thinking on the page. Here are a few possible questions your essay may be trying to answer: (Every place story will raise a different set of questions.)

· What are our rights and responsibilities to nature? To historic places? To “community”?

· Is change destructive or productive? How do we decide what changes and what remains?

· What is my relationship to my past—both my own and my family heritage?

· How can a place work to unite or divide a community? What happens when a place becomes controversial?

· How do we reconcile where we’re from with who we have become?

In this first essay, your own voice and experience will be the focus, but you must also incorporate at least one outside source. This source may be an interview with someone about your place, a newspaper or internet article explaining your place, or an essay that provides a reflective catalyst about “place.” You are permitted (and encouraged!) to use something we read in class, but you are not required to. We will discuss possible sources as well as methods of integration. Note that these outside sources should be necessary and fruitful components to your essay, not last-minute mandatory add-ons. If you could cut your source without losing much, you need to make more use of that source and/or to find something else that proves more effective.

Nitty-Gritty:

· 5 pages minimum. Double-spaced, 1” margins, 12 pt. font, Times New Roman, pg. #s

· Include a Works Cited (Does not have to be a separate page.)

· Rough drafts due: Wednesday, 9/17 in class. Bring 4 copies.

· Workshops will be held Thursday 9/18, Friday 9/19, and Monday 9/22. Class is cancelled 9/22. 2 copies of each of your peer reviews are due at workshop.

· Final drafts due: Wednesday, 9/24 in class, paper-clipped to your rough draft.

· This paper is worth 15% of your final grade. For grading criteria, please see the St. Martin’s Handbook section entitled “Grading Criteria in UK Writing Courses,” pgs. UK 18-22

· Write with personality, curiosity, and heart. Go to it!