This unit explores writing about family histories or developing profiles of family members with an emphasis on stories that carry with them larger themes related to identify, class, gender, education, health, heritage, etc. Over the next several weeks, you will explore stories related to your family, family history, or family members. You may choose to profile a single family member or reflect on experiences that relate to your entire family. You are welcome to expand your definition of family to include family friends or neighbors whose relationships have blurred the lines between family and nonfamily.
You will be posting short pieces related to this genre of creative nonfiction, giving each other feedback on those postings, and choosing one to revise as a more formal family history or family profile.
Try to tell stories that have layers of significance that are at once original to your family and that will spark recognition among your readers. Look for tension, complex social meaning, and stories that resist a simple moral or that openly defy simple interpretations.
The goal of this unit is to explore techniques for writing about others. Because you cannot get into the heads of the people you will be writing about, you will want to interview them or interview those who knew them to fill in some of the blanks in your own memories.
Your memoir should be at least 2,000 words long.