PROJECT 1: “Where I’m From”

Introduction
One of the most familiar tenets of writing is: “Write what you know.” Everybody knows the place he or she calls home. Or we think we do. But to know something—anything—in its richness, complexity and contradiction, one must write about it.

Place is a space with a story. It’s a simple question then: Where is your place? But it is followed by two not-so-simple questions: How did that place shape who you are now? What do you like and dislike about your place?

Describe this place so that readers will form a detailed and relatively accurate picture in their minds of what it is (or was) like, and of its influence on you. You may want to identify a prominent geological, architectural, social, or cultural feature as a focal point, and develop a fuller picture of your place around this central feature. For example, my place is transected by a river of great historical import. By focusing on the river, I am able to reflect on geologic time as well as cultural history—the ways the river has intersected and helped pattern peoples’ lives, including my own, down through the years.

If you are writing about a place you can visit now, get a hold of a camera, take some pictures that are illustrative of this place, and include photo-images in your essay. In my case, these pictures are mostly scenic, but your pictures don’t have to be. You might include images of features and scenes that are symbolic of your attitude toward your place—dumpsters, strip malls, abandoned swing sets, street corners, parking lots. Just make sure your images are of actual places that appear in your mind when you think about your place. If you’re unable to take pictures, perhaps you can obtain some old photographs from other sources. Images, of course, are optional.

GOALS:

-create a dominant impression of the place you call home.
-experiment with concrete, physical description and reflective/emotive, sensory description.
-develop paragraphs with topic sentences and supportive sentences of varying length and pattern.
-arrive at original answers to the questions above (particularly “How did that place shape who you are now?”)

Readings (on reserve):

“Scary Places” by James Howard Kunstler
“The Unsettling of America” by Wendell Berry
“Working Landscapes” by Tony Hiss