Preview

My Life: The Memoir Craze By Lee Gutkind

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
800 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
My Life: The Memoir Craze By Lee Gutkind
Creative Non-fiction Writing. I took this creative non-fiction writing class to sharpen my skills as a writer. It has been fun, and I have learned a lot about the mechanics of writing. We were taught to focus on ourselves as subjects in our papers because everyone has a story to tell that other people would be interested in reading about. Sometimes life is stranger than fiction, and more interesting to read, to-boot. From our book, Keep it real, by Lee Gutkind, the article, “The Memoir Craze” explains that readers are no longer just wanting to read about famous people, but they are also wanting to read about ordinary people’s lives too (Gutkind, 97). Professor White did everything she could to help us as writers by answering questions we had about our writing, explaining assignments, emailing us back if we have any questions, and encouraging us in our efforts so we can become better writers. Professor White was friendly, flexible, and has a great sense of humor. She makes learning fun. The class consisted of workshops every week, allowing other students to read our stories and give us feedback on our writing, with the goal of learning how to improve our work. I have learned to put more details in my stories to make them less confusing, and more interesting to my readers. Writing description …show more content…
“As I laid on my side, I opened my eyes to tall, wet, grass, with the shadows from the trees enveloping my body.” In my opinion, that paragraph had the best show not tell description I have ever written. I had a note on my paper from one of the students that read this piece, who said, “Where are you?” But I do not agree with that comment because many writers leave people guessing in the first paragraph of their stories, to give the reader a sense of excitement and curiosity, so they will want to keep

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Willam Zinnser Analysis

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In “How to write a memoir” Willam Zinnser gives advice for memoir writers. He writes about how to “Be yourself “, “Speak freely”, and “Tell your own story”…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    What comes to your mind when you hear the word hero? My kind of hero is one that will try as hard as they can even if they know they can’t do anything to help it or make it better. My kind of hero is one that will fight even if it wont get them anywhere. My kind of hero is one that will be selfless when it comes to others. And when I think of a hero I think of a very strong special somebody that will do anything for anyone just to consider there feelings. My kind of hero is my little man Wyatt.…

    • 219 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Throughout my life, I have faced a number of crucibles but one, in particular, is more prominent than the rest. About five years ago, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, a traumatic experience that affected my entire family. Each member of my immediate family chose to deal with the news in different ways, however, I am the only one that elected to live in denial. Sadly, the only way I knew how to cope with such devastating news was to continue living my life as if nothing was happening. Denial is simply unsustainable as you cannot escape the memories that the crucible has formed. Nevertheless, years after my mom was originally diagnosed I began to appreciate the experience for what it was rather than shy away from it; developing hardiness.…

    • 316 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Recalling the past film and television works, mainstream theme constantly changing. However, some topics have become old fashioned film-making at its best and are still popular nowadays. Hero, is one of the classics of the film and literature.…

    • 279 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nearing the end of the tube I can almost see the shore, It feels as if I've been riding this wave for days. This wave is my hurdle in the ocean that is life, choppy at the beginning but slowly passing by. The ocean has many waves, one for each surfer to ride, my specialty wave happened to be dyslexia. It was in the second grade that my teacher first realized I was different from the other students, because I had yet to read my first book. My parents had found this odd as well, and took me to see a neurologist, who diagnosed me as having dyslexia. I did not quite know what this meant at the time, I only knew that it was the reason I could not comprehend the topics as easily as my classmates.…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Overview: For this assignment you will write an autobiographical narrative based on your past literary experience that communicates insight about yourself as a reader and/or writer to your audience (in this case, your instructor and your classmates). Your essay should center around one remembered event and/or one remembered person. It should not be several small anecdotes combined into one essay, although you may refer to these in your essay. You may consider places, family traditions, teaching methods, school experiences, classes, assignments, or anything else from your past that has helped shape your literacy. You will want to make sure that your essay explains how your chosen topic changed you in some way. Use detail, description, and/or dialogue to tell your story compellingly and vividly. To get started, we have read and will continue to read and discuss both professional and student narratives. As a group and individually, we’ll look for common factors that help these narratives succeed as both powerful stories and conveyors of personal knowledge.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Improving my ability to become a great writer and write grade-A college papers is an important goal I hope to achieve by taking this class. My personal goals overall for this class is to gain the necessary elements and principles of writing, in order to further help my skills as a writer so it may lead to future success. As a writer my skills have improved over the years in things like grammar, thesis statements, outlines and critical thinking. Overall my skills in writing have greatly improved over the years, even though some may still require improvement. By completing this class over the summer, I look forward in reducing my weaknesses as a writer writer’s block and etc., in order to become a more significant and effective writer. Improving my writing skills has numerous benefits whether in college or things like vocabulary, keeping track of daily events, or even writing a journal of all the events taking place…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    When the semester began I thought to my knowledge that my writing was that of good quality. Though I had a good basic understanding of the format of an essay or letter I still had a lot to learn. My writing changed in many ways such as learning to eliminate unnecessary wording in my thesis, the use of synonyms, analyzing quotes and writing abstract to concrete thoughts or ideas. This Class not only helped enhance my writing abilities but to also better evaluate the writings of others and forced me to acknowledge the rigorous work of future courses in college.…

    • 954 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    My heart was racing, palms sweating, anyone could sense my nervous energy as I walked into Professor Roth’s 1301 English class. Writing has never been my area of expertise and I often struggle with proper grammar. Professor Roth has helped me improve my writing tremendously in the short eight-week span we have been in class. I have gained knowledge of the writing process, improved my sentence-level writing skills, and collaboratively worked with fellow classmates to achieve common goals. Over the eight weeks, I have acquired substantial fundamental aspects of writing in English 1301. Writing is an interactive process and there is always room for improving.…

    • 692 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In March 2011, I took a few days of classes and received my hunting education certification. Looking back, the actual class time is just a blur of what not to do, but I was reminded of them when I took drivers education last December, with the what not to do teachings. I also remember being very nervous about the test, but having a great feeling when I learned I passed. That October, I remember being immensely excited to go on my first hunt. The night before my dad and I left, I had a parent teacher conference and I remember getting some strange looks in the parking lot because we had a trailer loaded with tents, four wheelers, chairs, and a bunch of other stuff…

    • 844 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Reflecting on My Writing

    • 401 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Even though I have always enjoyed writing, I have never been able to call myself a writer. However, because of my English Composition I class, I feel that I can stand up to the title. Throughout my learning experience this semester, I discovered valuable tools and methods that helped me to transform my thoughts to words on paper. I learned how to think from different perspectives and to support my own point of view. These objectives especially accelerated my progression as a writer.…

    • 401 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    walking ses

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages

    I visited the writing center on Thursday, March 8 at 1 P.M. for a 25 minute session. The tutor that helped me was Jordan Tao. She helped me revise and then gave me feedback on my profile essay. First she asked me what the few problems that I have are. I told her I need to see if everything is correct and flow together. I also wanted to expand it so it can meet the guidelines. The main focus of the session was to help me to develop my essay and also to see if everything connects back to the main topic. She also made me go deep and make my readers fully Mike Mcgarvin.…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When I look back at my past writing experiences the first thing that comes to mind is when I did Young Authors in grade school. When I was younger, I typically prefered to write fiction, but I also branched out to non-fiction and poetry in order to try to be able to win an award. This made me begin to fall in love with poetry and develop an understanding and respect for non-fiction. In fact, in fourth grade, I won the Honorable Mention in Wyoming for my non-fiction book. It was titled “How to Feel Better When your Family is Gone.” The book was about losing family members who have passed away and how to cope with the loss. After having the experience of earning the Honorable Mention, I began to have an interest in writing.…

    • 388 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Memoir of Mom

    • 1043 Words
    • 5 Pages

    A mother can be both a mentor and a best friend to her little girl. A mom is a person who her daughter can have trust and faith in, someone who one can create a deep mutual bond with. I see my mother as role model. She is inspirational to me because she is an outgoing, funny and enthusiastic person. My Mother is the person who I go to for advice, she is the right person and I know to go to her right away.…

    • 1043 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    plan

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages

    We have made it half way through our journey together (I can hardly believe it!). It is a good time to stop and take a break. It is a good time to think about where we’ve been and what we’ve done, where we are and what we are doing, where we are going and what we will do.…

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays