Monday, July 13, 2009
What a great week!
I had a great week with you guys - it really was a high point of my summer, as Courtney said. Feel free to post here to keep in touch and let everyone know what you're up to. And of course, as with just about anything online, don't post anything you wouldn't want your parents or teachers to see - or, of course, your future professors!!
Friday, July 10, 2009
Final Assignment
Write a letter to your classmates from this pre-college program - but write it to their future selves. Maybe to them when they're 60 and thinking about retirement, or 25 and done with college - it should be at least five years in the future. What are your hopes for them? What do you think they might have done with their lives? What is important to you for them to remember about you, about your teachers here, about the time you shared here at the pre-college program? As always, there is no length requirement - it should be as long as you need it to be to say what you need it to say.
If you are more comfortable writing a song or a poem, you are welcome to do that too, as long as it's about your experience here and something you share with your classmates.
During the morning on Saturday, you'll have the opportunity to share these letters. You can either read your letter yourself or you can give it to Miriam to read - either way is fine. If you would prefer that your letter be read without your name attached, just let Miriam know in advance.
We will work on these for the last part of class. If you are not finished by the time class ends, you are welcome to work on it later and bring it to breakfast.
If you decide, at the breakfast, that you'd like copies of these, I will check in with all of you and we'll see about whether we can do that, and how.
If you are more comfortable writing a song or a poem, you are welcome to do that too, as long as it's about your experience here and something you share with your classmates.
During the morning on Saturday, you'll have the opportunity to share these letters. You can either read your letter yourself or you can give it to Miriam to read - either way is fine. If you would prefer that your letter be read without your name attached, just let Miriam know in advance.
We will work on these for the last part of class. If you are not finished by the time class ends, you are welcome to work on it later and bring it to breakfast.
If you decide, at the breakfast, that you'd like copies of these, I will check in with all of you and we'll see about whether we can do that, and how.
Creating Your Autobiography
To write your autobiography, you have two options:
1. Write it as a letter to yourself in the future. Maybe to yourself, at age 80, reminding yourself of your youth, or a letter to yourself at 40 reminding yourself what was important to you when you were younger. Write it in letter format ("Dear Me..."), and be creative with that format. Your future self, of course, can't (yet) respond, but you can write.
2. Write it as the first chapter or two of a longer autobiography - one that's going to take years to complete, because you haven't lived it all yet. So you're providing the introduction that's leading up to the rest of your life. How do you think your life so far is preparing you for where you see your life going? Is there any foreshadowing you're going to incorporate, any hints for where future chapters might go?
1. Write it as a letter to yourself in the future. Maybe to yourself, at age 80, reminding yourself of your youth, or a letter to yourself at 40 reminding yourself what was important to you when you were younger. Write it in letter format ("Dear Me..."), and be creative with that format. Your future self, of course, can't (yet) respond, but you can write.
2. Write it as the first chapter or two of a longer autobiography - one that's going to take years to complete, because you haven't lived it all yet. So you're providing the introduction that's leading up to the rest of your life. How do you think your life so far is preparing you for where you see your life going? Is there any foreshadowing you're going to incorporate, any hints for where future chapters might go?
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Structuring Your Story
Now that you've spent some time thinking about your life and which experiences are important and would be part of the life story you'd like to tell, let's think about the best ways to put that story together. The first step is to take either a bunch of post-it notes or a piece of colored paper and write, chronologically, step by step, how your life and its important events happened. So my high school narrative, for example, would look like this:
* Parents emigrated from Germany to US
* I'm born two years after they immigrate
* My brother's born two years after me, which pisses me off for ten years.
* We move out of student housing into our own house
* We get a cat
* I get teased a lot in school.
* I have some amazing teachers.
* We see my grandparents and friends from Germany almost every year
* In high school I am very depressed.
* My friends sometimes turn on me for reasons I don't understand
* Sometimes I get bullied.
* Sometimes I help them bully other people, so that they won't pick on me. I feel like a coward, but at least they're not all picking on me.
* I throw myself into work so I don't need to think about friends.
* Sometimes I can't even motivate to do my work and then I think even the teachers don't respect me.
*I fight a lot with my mom
* Sometimes my cat is the only one I trust. Although most of the time I also trust my dad.
* I can't wait for college, because it has to be better than this.
* I play sports because everyone does, but I'm not very good at them. In 11th grade everyone else makes varsity volleyball except me, who's still on JV.
* In the summer after 11th grade I meet a bunch of kids from another high school. They are funny, kind of crazy, creative, exactly the kind of people I want to hang around with, and best of all they want to hang out with me, too!
* Senior year I mostly ditch my old friends, even though I still see them every day. But I don't really care much about them now, and I spend most of my weekends with the new friends. They accept me as I am.
So this is my narrative, point by point, in the order that it happened. Each separate point would be on a separate post-it note, or if I'd written on colored paper I'd cut between each point.
Why do this? Because the order that it happened isn't necessarily the best order for a story - a lot of movies start in the middle and make you figure out what happened before; Alice Sebold's brilliant book The Lovely Bones starts with the main character's murder and goes backward from there. So structure is something you can and should control.
Exchange your cut-up pile of events or your collected post-it notes with someone else you trust, someone you've worked with before. Each of you should try to assemble the other person's story in an interesting way, one that isn't the same as just chronological as it happened. When you're done, go over them with each other, make comments, discuss, give feedback, explain.
* Parents emigrated from Germany to US
* I'm born two years after they immigrate
* My brother's born two years after me, which pisses me off for ten years.
* We move out of student housing into our own house
* We get a cat
* I get teased a lot in school.
* I have some amazing teachers.
* We see my grandparents and friends from Germany almost every year
* In high school I am very depressed.
* My friends sometimes turn on me for reasons I don't understand
* Sometimes I get bullied.
* Sometimes I help them bully other people, so that they won't pick on me. I feel like a coward, but at least they're not all picking on me.
* I throw myself into work so I don't need to think about friends.
* Sometimes I can't even motivate to do my work and then I think even the teachers don't respect me.
*I fight a lot with my mom
* Sometimes my cat is the only one I trust. Although most of the time I also trust my dad.
* I can't wait for college, because it has to be better than this.
* I play sports because everyone does, but I'm not very good at them. In 11th grade everyone else makes varsity volleyball except me, who's still on JV.
* In the summer after 11th grade I meet a bunch of kids from another high school. They are funny, kind of crazy, creative, exactly the kind of people I want to hang around with, and best of all they want to hang out with me, too!
* Senior year I mostly ditch my old friends, even though I still see them every day. But I don't really care much about them now, and I spend most of my weekends with the new friends. They accept me as I am.
So this is my narrative, point by point, in the order that it happened. Each separate point would be on a separate post-it note, or if I'd written on colored paper I'd cut between each point.
Why do this? Because the order that it happened isn't necessarily the best order for a story - a lot of movies start in the middle and make you figure out what happened before; Alice Sebold's brilliant book The Lovely Bones starts with the main character's murder and goes backward from there. So structure is something you can and should control.
Exchange your cut-up pile of events or your collected post-it notes with someone else you trust, someone you've worked with before. Each of you should try to assemble the other person's story in an interesting way, one that isn't the same as just chronological as it happened. When you're done, go over them with each other, make comments, discuss, give feedback, explain.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Marjane Satrapi
Iranian graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi tells about writing her novel, which is now a movie voiced by Catherine Deneuve and Iggy Pop.
Interview Questions
The key is to let the interview take on a life of its own. If something comes up in one answer, follow up on it. Don't feel like you need to ask all of these questions, or ask them in this order. These are just to get started, and in case you get stuck. Each interview should be 10 minutes long, then you switch and the interviewee becomes the interviewer for the next 10 minutes.
* How did you get your name? Were you named after anyone?
* What's the earliest thing you can remember?
* What's an important story from your childhood? Either one that someone told you, or one that you actually were a part of.
* Did your family move? How did you feel about moving? How often did you move, and how far was your extended family from you?
* Do you remember the first time you went somewhere without your parents? What was the situation? How did you feel?
* When you were very little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
* What's your perspective now on what you wanted to be back then?
* Do you have brothers and sisters? Are they older or younger? Do you have a favorite brother or sister?
* Have you ever been bullied? Describe the situation.
* Have you ever been the bully? Describe the situation.
* If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?
* How did you get your name? Were you named after anyone?
* What's the earliest thing you can remember?
* What's an important story from your childhood? Either one that someone told you, or one that you actually were a part of.
* Did your family move? How did you feel about moving? How often did you move, and how far was your extended family from you?
* Do you remember the first time you went somewhere without your parents? What was the situation? How did you feel?
* When you were very little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
* What's your perspective now on what you wanted to be back then?
* Do you have brothers and sisters? Are they older or younger? Do you have a favorite brother or sister?
* Have you ever been bullied? Describe the situation.
* Have you ever been the bully? Describe the situation.
* If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?
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