Telling Your Story
Presentation and narrative due in class on
Monday, January 12
Two to three pages, typed, printed out, and stapled.
The presentation counts as 10% of your final grade and the narrative counts as 10% of your final grade.
This assignment consists of both a presentation and a write-up. We will break up into groups of four or five, and each of you will introduce yourselves in a five to ten-minute presentation to the other people in your group.The written component will consist of two parts:
- A narrative with at least one turning point.
- A paragraph about how your experience would have been different if you belonged to a different gender, a different socioeconomic class, or if you had a different sexual orientation. In many situations these differences are intertwined, and so you can focus on one or more kinds of differences.
The first part will be a narrative with at least one turning point. Prior to writing you should take some time to reflect on your life. You might brainstorm about the significant experiences in your life, your relationships with friends, family, and people outside of the groups you identify with, and your hopes and dreams for the future. It might also be helpful for you to speak with people you have shared experiences with.
Note that you are not telling your story in its entirety. You should focus on a specific turning point, but please provide any context that you feel will be necessary for you to tell your story. In previous versions of this class many students have told stories about moving from one place to another, about people who influenced their lives such as family members or groups of friends, and about problems that they have had to handle.
The second part of the written component will require you to use your imagination to consider how your experience in your story has been shaped by gender, socioeconomic class, or sexuality. In other words, your experience has been shaped by not only race and ethnicity but also by gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic class.
For the presentation, you will present only for the other people in your group. You will not present for the whole class. You should use the written component of this assignment for your presentation, but you should not just read your narrative to the other people in your group. If you want, you can only present on the first part of your written assignment, the turning point narrative.