Rhetoric and Writing Studies/ Memoir

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Project 1: Memoir

Assignment: Memoir (personal writing situation)

Reading: Patricia Hampl’s “Memory and Imagination”


Purpose of the Assignment: To give you the experience of writing a narrative argument within the constraints of a particular rhetorical situation.


Assignment Description


For this assignment, I would like you to narrate personally meaningful, specific events that influenced your choice of major and/or career. You may use Hampl’s memoir as a guide. The piano lesson she describes took place over a short period of time. (The rest of her chapter discusses what she learned from the process of writing a memoir.)


There are only four essential components you need to include in your memoir:


  1. Background that establishes the context in which the events that influenced your choice of major and/or career occurred. Here you’ll use subjective description (e.g., feelings, perceptions, emotions) and objective description (e.g., place and people names, dates, colors, shapes, textures, etc) to place the narrative in a context.
  2. The significant events that influenced your decision to choose a particular major and/or career.
  3. An evaluation of those events. What did you learn from them? How have these events changed your life? How do you look at life differently now?
  4. A message (your argument) you wish to convey to your audience.


When I say there are only four essential components you need to include in your narrative, I mean that you have freedom to decide what to include and in what order you would like to present these components. Furthermore, autobiographical narratives can be enhanced by dialogue (conversations between people) and dialect (the actual words and ways that people say them in conversations).


Keep in mind that you are writing to an audience that does not know you, so what do you feel is necessary for you to include in your narrative so the reader can fully understand what you have written?


Your paper will be about 4 to 6 pages long, double-spaced. To give you some ideas, I’ve placed some examples of memoirs in this area of our Blackboard site.





Criteria for Evaluation:


  • Does your memoir narrate an event that had strong personal meaning for you?


  • Is it coherent and cohesive?


  • Is your memoir interesting, with vivid descriptive passage and sharp details?


  • Have you utilized your memoir in a way so that your message is conveyed clearly to your audience?


  • Is the language of your narrative clear (i.e. easily accessible to the readers), concrete, and appropriate to your purpose?


  • Do you avoid clichés and stilted sentence structures and phrasing?


  • Are your grammar problems few enough and insignificant enough that they don’t get in the way of understanding? For instance, is your narrative developed in complete sentences? Are subject-verb, pronoun, and verb tense agreement errors rare? Are spelling errors infrequent?


Key 305W Outcomes Met with This Assignment


Students will:


  • Analyze the details of a wide variety of writing situations (textual elements such as tone, evidence, organizational patterns, diction, even visuals) according to the author’s purpose as well as the audience’s needs and tastes


  • Actively read texts using a variety of reading strategies such as annotation, visual organizers, questioning, and discussion


  • Identify how a writer uses rhetorical strategies in various genres of writing


  • Interpret, analyze, and evaluate demanding texts


  • Apply critical thinking skills and reading strategies to evaluate their own writing


  • Reflect on their own progress as a working writer in relation to critical thinking and reading strategies


  • Develop flexible strategies for creating, revising, and editing texts


  • Critique their own texts


  • Write with an awareness of audience and purpose


  • Identify how discourse communities employ particular strategies for conveying, researching, evaluating, and presenting information


  • Analyze and choose the appropriate conventions for a range of audience expectations


  • Sustain reasonable correctness in grammar and mechanics to perform well in a variety of writing contexts and professional settings


  • Critically analyze a variety of texts produced for public and individual readers






Unformatted Attachment Preview

Project 1: Memoir Assignment: Memoir (personal writing situation) Reading: Patricia Hampl’s “Memory and Imagination” Due date: See course schedule Purpose of the Assignment: To give you the experience of writing a narrative argument within the constraints of a particular rhetorical situation. Assignment Description For this assignment, I would like you to narrate personally meaningful, specific events that influenced your choice of major and/or career. You may use Hampl’s memoir as a guide. The piano lesson she describes took place over a short period of time. (The rest of her chapter discusses what she learned from the process of writing a memoir.) There are only four essential components you need to include in your memoir: 1. Background that establishes the context in which the events that influenced your choice of major and/or career occurred. Here you’ll use subjective description (e.g., feelings, perceptions, emotions) and objective description (e.g., place and people names, dates, colors, shapes, textures, etc) to place the narrative in a context. 2. The significant events that influenced your decision to choose a particular major and/or career. 3. An evaluation of those events. What did you learn from them? How have these events changed your life? How do you look at life differently now? 4. A message (your argument) you wish to convey to your audience. When I say there are only four essential components you need to include in your narrative, I mean that you have freedom to decide what to include and in what order you would like to present these components. Furthermore, autobiographical narratives can be enhanced by dialogue (conversations between people) and dialect (the actual words and ways that people say them in conversations). Keep in mind that you are writing to an audience that does not know you, so what do you feel is necessary for you to include in your narrative so the reader can fully understand what you have written? Your paper will be about 4 to 6 pages long, double-spaced. To give you some ideas, I’ve placed some examples of memoirs in this area of our Blackboard site. 1 Criteria for Evaluation: • Does your memoir narrate an event that had strong personal meaning for you? • Is it coherent and cohesive? • Is your memoir interesting, with vivid descriptive passage and sharp details? • Have you utilized your memoir in a way so that your message is conveyed clearly to your audience? • Is the language of your narrative clear (i.e. easily accessible to the readers), concrete, and appropriate to your purpose? • Do you avoid clichés and stilted sentence structures and phrasing? • Are your grammar problems few enough and insignificant enough that they don’t get in the way of understanding? For instance, is your narrative developed in complete sentences? Are subject-verb, pronoun, and verb tense agreement errors rare? Are spelling errors infrequent? Key 305W Outcomes Met with This Assignment Students will: • Analyze the details of a wide variety of writing situations (textual elements such as tone, evidence, organizational patterns, diction, even visuals) according to the author’s purpose as well as the audience’s needs and tastes • Actively read texts using a variety of reading strategies such as annotation, visual organizers, questioning, and discussion • Identify how a writer uses rhetorical strategies in various genres of writing • Interpret, analyze, and evaluate demanding texts • Apply critical thinking skills and reading strategies to evaluate their own writing • Reflect on their own progress as a working writer in relation to critical thinking and reading strategies • Develop flexible strategies for creating, revising, and editing texts • Critique their own texts 2 • Write with an awareness of audience and purpose • Identify how discourse communities employ particular strategies for conveying, researching, evaluating, and presenting information • Analyze and choose the appropriate conventions for a range of audience expectations • Sustain reasonable correctness in grammar and mechanics to perform well in a variety of writing contexts and professional settings • Critically analyze a variety of texts produced for public and individual readers 3 Memoir It was last summer when I was sitting inside my car outside a Peet’s Coffee shop in Point Loma, San Diego. It was 9:45 a.m. and the sun was shining bright on the quaint little neighborhood I was in. Outside of my car was business as usual; people coming in and out of Fresh & Easy, picking up weekly dry cleaning and getting morning cups of Joe. Inside my car, my palms were sweating, heart racing, and thoughts running in and out of my mind as Zapp & Roger played quietly in the background. Saturday morning was an unusual time for an interview, I thought, but who was I to question the authority? I didn’t know what to expect. If I got the position, it would potentially be my first internship in the fashion industry. It would potentially be my first internship ever. Ten minutes of killing time went by so I decided to sit inside the coffee shop to kill some more time and to calm my nerves. “Can I have a small coffee with room for cream, please?” I asked the barista. “You got it,” he replied. After picking up my coffee at the drink bar, I anchored myself at a table, placing a black portfolio down that possessed my keys to success: a resume, a cover letter and five writing samples. I remember feeling like I was out of place because everyone else inside was wearing jeans and T-shirts; I, on the other hand, was wearing a white blazer, a black pencil skirt and ballet flats. But that didn’t matter. All I could think of was the interview to come and the woman named “Jessica” who would soon be my judge. It was 10:07 a.m. and she wasn’t there yet. At least I didn’t think she was. I had no idea what she looked like. All I knew of her was her name, her e-mail address, and a little bit about 1 the company she owned called “Future Standard.” We exchanged a few e-mails in the past, but I didn’t have any real connection with her, not even on Facebook (pun intended). I began to wonder if I had been stood up. We were supposed to meet at 10 a.m. at Peet’s Coffee shop in Point Loma. I remembered this accurately because I kept repeating it over and over in my head since we scheduled the meeting a few days before. Who is this “Jessica Hoffman” anyway? She could be a serial killer for all I know, crazy enough to strike in a public place. Well, that’s how I imagined Craigslist meetings to be at least. But I didn’t meet her on Craigslist; I met her on Twitter which was worse because there wasn’t a norm for that kind of meeting yet. At least not in a movie like The Craigslist Killer. A moment later, my phone began to vibrate. The numbers 415-317-2144 showed up on the screen. “Hello?” I answered. “Hi, is this Tresha?” the female voice on the other end said. “Yes, this is her.” I replied. “This is Jessica Hoffman. I’m sorry, but I’m running about 10 minutes late.” “Hi Jessica. That’s no problem.” “Great, I’ll see you in a few.” Beep beep beep. At this point, my pulse was beating faster than ever. Jessica was real and this interview was going to happen. Focus, Tresha. Don’t let your nerves get the best of you. As I began to pull myself together, a woman with long brown hair walked into the café wearing a navy blue blouse, denim jeans and sandals. She made eye contact with me and gracefully approached my table as if she knew I was the unsuspecting victim. 2 “Hi Tresha. I’m so sorry I’m late. It’s so nice to meet you,” she said as she reached over to shake my hand. I got up to shake hers and replied, “It’s okay. It’s a pleasure to meet you, too.” The next 30 minutes went by like lightning speed. I can only remember fragments of our conversation like why she started her business and what the social media internship I was interviewing for would entail, but nothing meant more to me than when she uttered, “I want to offer you the position.” I was flabbergasted. Was this for real? Did I really just land my first fashion internship? Yes, I did! The rest was a blur. I did have one dilemma though, and it occurred to me as she spoke those words. It was a no brainer that I would accept the position with no hesitation, but just one week before, I received a job offer to hostess at the world’s most recognized Japanese restaurant: Nobu Restaurant. I had been training there for a week already and I even signed the paperwork for human resources the day before. I took the opportunity because then I wasn’t hearing back from any of the places I had applied to and it was the easiest and quickest offer I’d gotten. I needed something new in my life fast or I’d be stuck in the mundane reality of going to school full time and working part-time at a job I didn’t even like anymore. Here it was though, a job I actually wanted and it was being handed to me on a silver platter. There was no thinking about it, there was just then at that moment that I had to decide. Should I take the internship that could be my foot in the door of the industry or should I decline the position and keep the job I had just started? Maybe both? No, I can’t do that. It’ll be impossible to manage. 3 In my heart I already knew the answer to the question though; the one that would truly make me happy. The problem was that I cared too much about what other people thought of me. The thought of the manager at the restaurant thinking I was unreliable, and the thought of my best friend who referred me the job being embarrassed for referring someone incompetent was weighing me down. But I knew what I had to do. It was finally my time to shine and I wouldn’t let something trivial hold me down. The restaurant manager would understand and if my best friend truly had my best intentions in mind, then she would support me in any of my endeavors no matter what. So I did it. I took the job. “Great! I’ll see you Monday morning then,” Jessica said. As I was walked out the doors of that Peet’s Coffee shop that morning, I felt invincible as if no one could stop me from getting what I wanted. Six months later I’m still interning for the company and I’m loving every minute of it. I get to be surrounded by beautiful clothes everyday while working towards a career I’m interested in, but it hasn’t been all rainbows and butterflies. I have had many sleepless nights and stressful days, but it has all been worth while. I worked hard to get that position and it has ultimately paid off because now I know I love what I do and I love the industry I’m going to be in. I know I can be at peace because I chose to follow my heart. What’s even better is knowing that I’ll be there to experience the growth of such an amazing company and the growth of myself. Someone once told me, “Find something you love and you won’t have to work a day in your life.” Now I can attest to this and pass the message on to dreamers alike. 4 Although growing up in a chaotic household hampered my life, I was lucky enough to have a good friend and a role model who influenced me in a positive way. I've never expressed it, but I feel a sense of gratitude to an childhood friend of mine named Steve Prado, for motivating me to persevere to college and earn a degree. I first met Steve while skateboarding. I was a 7th grader when Steve was in 8th grade, and we were both growing up in a small, farming community near the central coast of California called Gilroy. Steve had long hair, and was a nice guy with a good sense of humor. He could hold his own in a fight, and was popular and well liked by girls. I listened closely when he spoke, took his words to heart and tried to followed his lead whenever possible. I always thought, “If Steve can do it, I can do it.” He had a lot of qualities that I looked up to him for and wanted to be more like him. Since Steve had taken guitar class as an elective, so did I and we enjoyed listening to heavy metal music and playing guitar together. One day he explained to me why he had joined the high school football team. He said that he hadn't joined because he was into football, but because on Friday nights, he didn't want to be stuck watching from the stands while all of his other friends would be on the field together. What Steve said resonated with me. Football wasn't my passion either but I understood what he was saying so I joined the team too. We didn't hang out together as much during our high school years, but years later in 1993, a chance-encounter with my him prompted me to get serious about earning my degree. From as far back as I can remember, as many parents often do, my mom and my dad emphasized the importance of education and drilled it into mine and my two sister's heads that we were incredibly smart. My dad's favorite compliment for me was to tell me that I was “sharp” and he would use it when describing me to friends and family as well as to me directly. Even though I was aware that parents commonly thought highly of their own children, I knew my father was sincere when speaking of my intellectual abilities and because of this, I believed him. However, despite all of the praise he spoke, it was completely overshadowed by a bad temper and lack of kindness. I've never known what made him such a mean and angry man, but it had to have been something bad because it caused him to drink excessively and fall into a reckless habit of taking his displeasure with life out on his family. I believe he must have had some deep seeded self hatred and drive to isolate himself because his relentless vitriol and soul-sapping, misanthropic attitude and behavior eventually made him impossible to love, much less live with. Before I was born my father found his way out of poverty by joining the Army and then graduating from college and earning a teaching credential. Since I was young, he worked as the Spanish teacher for the local junior high school and made it an obsession to vigorously and sternly impose the value of education upon his kids. For him, making sure that his kids got their homework done correctly and that we not only achieved good grades but earned the best grades, must have been equivalent to matter of national security because if we failed to meet his expectations, pugilism would ensue. The consequences for non-comprehension of schoolwork or coming home with bad grades included terrorizing displays of rage, intimidation, verbal abuse and then prolonged periods of silent treatment. There were times I felt so sad, helpless and confused as I watched my older sister, who struggled with math, sit at the dinner table with a text book in front of her and a pencil in her hand, cowering underneath my father who with one palm on the table and the other firmly gripping the back of her chair, hawked above her right shoulder, enraged and yelling at her because of her inability to grasp the curriculum. It was clear that she was stifled by his aggressive, instructional technique by the blank, disengaged look on her face. She cried but eventually she just sat there quietly like stone and stared down at the paper in front of her until my father just gave up on her or until my mom could get him to stop. I was already an energetic young boy but coming from an chaotic home environment where bad manners and lack of compassionate regard for others was the norm, I often behaved inappropriately at school and was frequently reprimanded for misbehavior. I wanted to interact with the other children so much so that no matter how often the teacher had to interrupt class to deal with my distractions, I would continue with the same mischievousness minutes later. Usually within the first 2 weeks of class, the teacher would either move my desk far away from the other students in the very back corner of the room, or right in front of their desk. Despite my bad behavior, under strict tutoring and help from my father, my grades and test scores in elementary school were very good and I was actually presented with the opportunity to skip 6th grade and proceed to junior high school, the same school where my dad worked. Since I placed such a high value on being with my friends and my home-life did not provide me with the confidence I needed, I was fearful of moving up and being so young among kids who were much older that I was. I decided not to advance ahead of time and I attended the 6th grade on pace with my class and age-group. After having endured years of verbal abuse, silent treatment, intimidation and belittlement, against her deepest wishes, my mom decided that the best thing for her to do was to leave the family. She took a moment to explain to me that she cared deeply for my sisters and I, and that she wasn't leaving because she didn't love us. I was merely a 12 year old child but I felt so sorry for her and had such great sympathy for the pain that I had seen her live through, that I was relieved to hear that she had finally made a decision to help herself. Without a tear, with no second thought and with no emotion, I actually encouraged her to go. I couldn't believe that she had stayed as long as she did and I wanted her to have some relief from the torment and abuse that she suffered through for years. Not long after, my mom moved away, then soon after, both of my sisters went to live with her as well. From then until midway through my freshman year in high school, it was just me and my dad in a 5 bedroom house and he was more angry and ill-tempered than ever. He would wake up angry, leave to work angry, come home angry and go to bed angry. I would get home from school before he would and dreadfully await his arrival. I wished he wouldn't come home until later but usually, it was not long before I'd hear the ominous sound of metal keys and the door knob giggling that accompanied his entrance like an alarm that signified, “Danger, proceed with caution!” Most of the time he would enter, fully prepared with something to admonish me for. If not, he would offer only silence before shuffling through mail and then pacing around the house, apparently searching for something troublesome. One day, it occurred to me that I did not have to my father and I finally decided to retaliate against being subdued by his cold-hearted fear mongering and morbid affect. Just like any typical day, he was roaring at me in the kitchen, coming down on me severely because I had earned an unsatisfactory grade on some homework assignment. I had fantasized an rehearsed standing up to him a hundred times in my mind, and I had struggled to come to the conclusion that even though this man was my ultimate authority figure, that he was definitely in the wrong. I finally had the confidence to take a chance and stand up for myself against him. I looked him in the eye and challenged him physically. “Fuck You,” I said while posturing defiantly against him. “You want to hurt me? Go ahead then and do something! Hit me!” I wasn't afraid of him anymore. He laughed and made fun of me, saying, “Haha, oh you think you're tough huh... big tough guy huh?” I didn't think I was tough, in fact I was scared and felt weak and worthless. I wasn't challenging him to prove to him that I was tough, I did it because I was convinced that he was wrong and that he should know it. He continued to laugh off my stance against him and retreated to his bedroom. Not long after that incident, I decided to leave and I that I would be estranged from my him throughout all four years of high school. I wanted to prove that I didn't need to be belittled in order to graduate from high school. Just to prove that point, I moved away from him and cut him out of my life, a decision that although at the time seemed necessary, has troubled me ever since. I had just started high school, and I was 13 years old. Angry, estranged from my father, living with my depressed mother and depressed sisters, and with no man to model nor to provide any degree of guidance that I needed during my teenage years, I basically dropped out of school. My mother who was severely traumatized and depressed from the divorce and from having suffered years of abuse, lacked the fortitude to enforce discipline upon me. I was disoriented and broken down as well and since I had learned to discern the concepts of school and grades as being dire matters of insurmountable contention, I was averse to attending classes. My grades suffered severely and with each passing semester, I fell further and further behind course to graduate on time. After 3 years of shoddy attendance and poor grades, I was 16 years old and a Junior in high school when my high-school counselor informed me that I would fall short of the necessary credits that I needed to graduate unless I enrolled in and passed 2 night classes per semester at the local community college. The thought of having to suffer through 4 night classes for the entire final year of high school was dreadful, but I felt like that if I didn't graduate, my father “would win.” The main reason that I had left him was to prove to him that I could do just fine in school without him tormenting me. Although my performance was terrible and I failed a lot of classes along the way, ultimately I was determined to prove my point by graduating on time. I abided by my counselor's advice to attend the 4 classes, passed them successfully and graduated from high school on time and with a couple of credits to spare. After graduating from high school and having accomplished a worthless goal of “proving my father wrong,” I had no other goals. While many of my peers moved away for college, I remained living at home with my mother and managed to botch two semesters of classes at Gavilan Community College. Just as was the case in high school, I didn't know what I needed to do to succeed, didn't really care and couldn't think of any other reason for me to be there other than that “everyone else was doing it.” Luckily in 1993, while wandering around campus one day, I ran into my old friend Steve Prado. He started explaining to me how he had completed his general education requirements, had been accepted to Chico State University and that he would soon be moving out of Gilroy. To this day, I don't know exactly what it was about Steve's delivery, but just as when we were younger, I listened to him intently as he mentored. He explained to me how, as a prerequisite for receiving financial aid that he had gone into the advising department and developed a formal education plan that mapped out all the classes, semester by semester that he needed to transfer and be accepted to a university. Steve also emphasized, “Dude, you have to get the hell out of Gilroy, there is nothing here for you man.” Until then, transferring to a university and moving out of town did not seem real to me, but once again I gathered, “If Steve can do it, I can do it.” Despite countless instances over the years that I had heard about college from teachers, school counselors and from other kids, for some reason, only my friend Steve could make it seem real enough for me to take action to put a plan in motion. Shortly after that conversation with Steve, I booked an advising session with a college counselor who helped me construct a class-by-class, semester-by-semester plan. The plan was to complete all of my general-education requirements, and after the following three semesters the goal was complete. If it wasn't for Steve's detailed and motivational advice, I might have never made that plan and could have very likely ended up dropping out of junior college and maybe worse. Instead, I followed his advice and was able to put myself in position to transfer to a university and to earn a college degree. I'll always be gracious toward Steve for having been there for me at precisely the right time. The road since then hasn't been easy. Since I was mostly a drop-out in high school, when the time came to apply to universities, one of the most difficult things for me to do was to choose and commit to a major. I had lost interest in math, arts and sciences long ago. Unfortunately, the prevailing reason that I remained in school at all was to negate my father's pathological methodology and there was no major for that. I had to put something down on the application though, so simply because it sounded exotic and was novel I picked psychology. Just like I had been, the subject of psychology had been absent and non-existent from my high school's curriculum so by default, it was one subject that I had not yet had the opportunity to reject and dismiss. Essentially, I felt funneled toward being a psychology major. I imagined that the subject of psychology was enigmatic and that it involved people who were mysterious, different and downtrodden like I felt that I was. It seemed to me that the field of psychology defied conventionality and that the mere mention of the term psychology aroused a sense of curiosity and interest in people. I figured that if I were to become a psychology major and maybe even a psychologist one day, that just like the field of psychology, I too could be taken seriously despite cynicism. Now that I've studied psychology at San Diego State University, and I'm approaching graduation, I'm glad that I stuck to it and excited to finally be achieving a goal. The experience has has helped me develop into a better student and to realize the importance of making a solid plan and following through with it. My next goal is to gain acceptance to a graduate school program for neuropsychology, a plan that I've already in motion. I'm enrolled in a GRE preparation course and several upper division neuropsychology and neuroscience classes to get a jump start on the curriculum and to improve my competence with regard to the specialization. In hindsight, the difficulty that I've experienced along my path that I attributed to my father encompassed one of the longest, hardest and most important lessons I've ever learned. Three days after my birthday, on October 8th, 2011, a famous man named Al Davis passed away. As a business man and the long-time owner of the Oakland Raiders, he achieved incredible success. However, after his death, many who knew him remarked about his achilles heal. They said that had he not concerned himself for so long, and with so much vigor, with grudges and personal vendettas against people who he had perceived had wronged him, that he could have achieved much more. I wish that I could have concentrated more on my schoolwork and other things positive instead of focusing so much time and energy on the grudge that I held against my father. Just winning, for the sake of winning, sometimes is not winning at all. Memoir I can vividly remember sitting in the middle seat with my parents on either said of me, vigorously writing down, on two separate pieces of paper, the pros and cons of my top two colleges. I was on the plane coming back from orientation at Arizona State University. It was the end of April and right before this trip I was positive that this was going to be my future home, my fate was made up and I was going to be a Sun Devil. It wasn’t until right before I was leaving my house for the airport, that I checked the mail, and to my surprise found a nice, crisp, white letter sent from San Diego State University. I could not believe it. What were the chances that this letter would be delivered right before I was about to visit my future school, where I would spend the next 4; quite possibly 5, years of my life. San Diego State had always been my first choice since I first started researching colleges, but when I hadn’t heard from them two month’s after the date they specified accepted students should be notified, I began feeling doubtful. I had accepted the fact that I wasn’t meant to be an Aztec. To be completely honest, I was disappointed. Deep down I knew that that was the school I was meant to go to, and spend the next four or five years studying near the sunny shores of San Diego. When I came to terms that I was not meant to go there, I took my acceptance to ASU and turned it into a positive opportunity. I knew that I had to make the best of my situation and be thankful for the opportunity that I had, and appreciate the fact that I was going to college and still able to obtain an education at what is still considered to be a great school. 1 Choosing to go to college was not a forced decision by my parents, nor was it overlooked. It was merely a decision I was able to make on my own, although it was definitely advised by my parents, but for good reason and good intentions. Both of my parents made the decision to not attend college. They chose a path that led them travelling instead of studying, but I do believe that one learns just as much from living the actual experience. My mother moved to London at the young age of 21 to pursue her career in modeling. She was fortunate enough to travel around Europe for photo-shoots, commercial shoots and various other jobs. She lived a fairytale life in my eyes, living in a flat in the London to sharing an apartment by the Siene in Paris, France. Being in your early twenties and being able to carelessly live in Paris and London and travel around Europe as part of your job seems pretty educational to me. Of course today that is not seen as your typical kind of education. She does not have a degree to show for her experiences but instead a head filled with many years of memories. My dad on the other hand grew up in a family of five, four girls and himself. His mother was a stay at home mom, spending her days cooking and cleaning and paying more attention to her daughters than her only son. Therefore my dad was left to do a lot of things on his own, he had little to no supervision and spent a lot of his days exploring and being an adventurous young man. One thing that heightened his curiosity was food. He loved food, eating it, making it, sampling it, and none other but learning about it. He fed his curiosity by working in restaurants. Now, it was not all glitz and glam from the start he spent many days washing dishes, or fearlessly cutting his hands from breaking apart crab legs in a seafood restaurant. He did all of this for a reason- to learn. Eventually, after many 2 years of labor and love he was given an amazing opportunity: move to Paris to start a Mexican restaurant with a long-time friend and co-worker. Without hesitation he accepted. An opportunity like this made it a lot easier for my dad to abandon the idea of going to college, especially after his mom told him she would not be able to afford it after the passing of her husband a couple years prior. My dad embarked, at the age of 23, on a voyage that would forever shape his life. Coming from Vancouver, Canada and spending my last 3 years at an American College, I have learnt that the idea of going to a good college is greatly expressed and stressed in American high schools. Aids like SAT prep classes, Advanced Placement, and the ability to take college credit while still in high school are all ways in which the educational system push, or rather “encourage” students to succeed at their highest potential. On the contrary, schools in Canada are in my opinion a lot more relaxed. Not to say they don’t care about students going to college but their efforts are focused on the present and not so much preparing you for the future. I came to the decision that I wanted to attend college somewhere in America, preferably on the west coast. I do not consider Canadian schools to be inferior or lack educational excellence that many American schools possess I just simply wanted to take advantage of my dual citizenship and immerse myself into a true “college experience”. I was intrigued by the school spirit and pride that American schools possess. I was eager to place myself into unrecognizable situations and wasn’t afraid to get lost because in the end it would force me to find myself, grow, and learn things I may never otherwise learn. When I had finally realized and decided that I wanted to go to college in the United States, I had to 3 begin the process of applying a lot earlier than my fellow peers. I had to research and find an advisor whom would help me gear up for the application process for American schools. Having put more effort into preparing myself for college definitely has paid off and shown me that determination and discipline do come with great accomplishments. I came to San Diego not knowing a single soul, and through the years have learnt so much about life and myself. I am so thankful for the amount of inimitable experiences that have come my way through making the decision to go away to school. Those three hours on the plane ride home were spent making many lists of pro’s and con’s, and an immense amount of indecisiveness. I remember asking myself over and over again, Do I want to go somewhere where it’s always sunny? Do I want to live by the beach? Do I want to live closer to family or get as far away as possible? These were all questions (plus many more) I kept repeating over and over again in my head, until finally I reached a point where I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. I finally had to stop, breathe, and remember what I truly wanted from the beginning. As soon as I did that, the answer came and that gut feeling felt so right. It was then and there that I remember saying to myself, I want to live in San Diego, and study at San Diego State University. Not a day has passed that I have regretted my decision. My life is a dream. I get to wake up, walk onto a beautiful campus, and be taught by knowledgeable professors, learn about things that will not only further me in a career, but also better me in life’s unpredictable situations. I am studying journalism and media studies, with an emphasis in public relations, and from what I have been told San 4 Diego State is the place to be for this program. In hopes that my future holds something to do with fashion, public relations, and marketing I know that I will be able to look back and credit this school for all that I have learnt. Having always been enthralled by the fashion industry, constantly sifting through magazines, surfing online fashion blogs, and simply admiring those around me whom respect fashion as much as I do, I hope that I can incorporate all that I know and turn it into a career. Someone once told me, “It’s not work if you love It”, and that is what I strive to feel one day. I hope that I will be able to go to work every day and never once hear myself complain. Looking at my parents’ lives and how they both got to be where they are today, the dilemmas they faced, struggles they survived and the immense amount of effort they put into becoming successful and not only that, but happy, is an inspiration to me. Some say it is impossible to succeed in life without an education, but my parents have proven that theory wrong, and success isn’t all about money and how advanced you are in your company, it’s about being happy with what you have in life and loving every moment of it. I may complain about having too much homework or having to pull an allnighter to cram for an exam, but in hindsight these are the days that are molding me into who I am and will be in the coming years. When I made that decision to go to San Diego State, flying thousands of miles above ground, I knew that I had made the right decision and nothing could go wrong because in the end I chose to follow my heart. 5
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Explanation & Answer

Attached.

Rhetoric and Writing Studies: Memoir – Outline
Thesis statement: While events may greatly shape our lives, I believe it is people who influence the
way our lives turn out profoundly.

I.

Introduction

II.

Childhood

III.

Being a “Troublesome” Kid

IV.

Being Idealistic

V.

Skepticism of the Education System

VI.

High School

VII.

Indecision after High School

VIII.

Meeting Marquez

IX.

Reconciling with my Parents

X.

Starting College

XI.

Conclusion


Running head: MEMOIR

1

Rhetoric and Writing Studies: Memoir
Name
Institution

MEMOIR

2
Rhetoric and Writing Studies: Memoir

While events may significantly shape our lives, I believe it is people who influence
the way our lives turn out profoundly. Well, at least that is what my story suggests. You see,
the person that I am today, my station in life, and my career track is not merely the product of
my personal decisions but the aggregate of the impact of the most influential people in my
life.
You see, I was not the kind of child that most parents would want to have as their
child. My parents have always loved me, at least in the way a parent must love their
offspring. But the thing is that I did not have the qualities that most parents would want their
child to have. I was not always agreeable. I was a free spirit. I was an idealistic person even
from a young age. Parents, in my experience, want their child to be everything but these.
They want their kid always to do what they ask, to never ask too many questions, and to
follow the path they have set for them. Since I was not like that, I have always had problems
with them growing up.
I remember one beautiful morning when I was about ten, and my folks were driving
us to school. We were living in Santa Barbara, close to the beach. As we were driving by the
coastline, my dad stopped the car to pick up a quick coffee from his favorite coffee shop...


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