Story Overview
Tell us the story of your writing life. Start by going back to the earliest thing you can remember writing. Describe what you remember about writing this piece. Then tell us about any other important early memories that influenced your writing life. These might be early memories of things you wrote and/or read.
Then move ahead and talk about writing you did for school. How did these writing experiences shape you? Do any of those experiences stand out in your memory? Do any of your writing/English teachers stand out in your memory?
Then move to talking about other important writing events from your life. These may be school or non-school related.
Finally, think about how your writing life experiences have shaped your views of writing. How have these experiences from your past shaped your views of what it means to write and how you think people should be taught to write.
Story Requirements
This story should be 3-5 pages long, double spaced.
Although the story might be told chronologically, this is not a requirement. Some stories are better if you jump around in time or use flashbacks or other writing techniques.
The suggestions above for what to write are only suggestions. You can write an entirely different story if you think that’s useful. Just use this writing as a chance to explore your own lived experiences as a writer. You may do that in any way you see fit.
This story should be true, but you will be sharing it in class, so, if you need to, you can change a few facts to protect the innocent (or the guilty). You’ll have to think about whether any story written from memory is ever really true. You decide how to handle that issue.