The purposes of this assignment include 1.) familiarizing you with the importance of free-writing as a preparatory activity for working on the course’s major essays; 2.) exploring the differences between scene, anecdote, and detail, in writing from memory; 3.) canvassing your past experience for details that go to psychic characterization, thus to scene; and 4.) editing: culling from notebooks.
As a writing practice, you should develop the habit of writing in a notebook. You’ll want to take the opportunity to write freely at least twice; I’d encourage you to do at least five out-of-class free write sessions. Then: cull from these to produce a 2-3 pp. imitation of Brainard’s I Remember, drawing on your own experiences. You may use single or double space for this collection, but always double space between two entries.
Criteria for evaluation: will include your sensitivity to the use of all three categories of “concretion” in narrative: detail | scene | anecdote; the texture of your movement between the immediate past and your deep past; the patterning of repetition in details/tropes in the piece, as well the pleasing surprise of juxtaposition. The mix of language, or diction, that might range across high, low, and plain registers. The mixing, too, of scenic details, from the personal to the cultural.