Blog 1: Educated–Choose either the creative or the critical prompt (650 – 800 words–Due Sunday at 5pm)
Critical Prompt: In our daily reflective engagements, we have engaged Educated piece-by-piece, focusing on a key passage here, and applying a useful concept from Reading Autobiography there. For your blog post (see requirements on length, etc., under “Policies”), you will offer a more sustained reflection on Education–tying together multiple, related moments together that cohere around a core concepts or set of related concepts from Reading Autobiography. If what we have done so far together as a class resembles something like an analytical inventory–a hodge-podge of things we noticed and insights we developed–this is your opportunity to tell a more compelling critical story about Educated in a more sustained way. This “story” should be grounded in a claim that you’re making about the autobiography, and you will use engagement with specific moments in the book to serve as textual evidence. Please quote from both the book and RA, though note that these quotes don’t count towards the total word count.
Creative Prompt: Autobiography is, almost by definition, comprised of memories. This is obvious. But Westover’s approach to exploring memory is unique. Her meditations often draw out the tension between the the narrated “I” and narrating “I” quite explicitly, for example, and she often troubles over the question of autobiographical truth vs. capital-T “Truth” throughout. That is, her memories are often analytical, or at least self-reflexive. For this prompt, please relate one of your own memories, and do so in a way that suggests a similarly intentional density about what memory is, what it accomplishes, how it is constructed, contested, and recalled. Then write a brief critical follow up describing your intentions and analyzing the results.
Blog 2: Dear America–Choose either the creative or the critical prompt (650 – 800 words–Due Sunday at 5pm)
Critical Prompt: For your blog post, please offer a sustained reflection on Dear America, tying together multiple, related moments together that cohere around a core concepts or set of related concepts from Reading Autobiography. This is your opportunity to tell a focused and pointed critical story about Dear America. This “story” should be grounded in a claim that you’re making about the autobiography, and you will use engagement with specific moments in the book to serve as textual evidence. Please quote from both the book and RA, though note that these quotes don’t count towards the total word count.