Introduction (( This assignment is based upon the collage assignment in Elbow and Belanoff’s A Community of Writers: A Workshop Course in Writing and Being a Writer: A Community of Writers Revisited. ))
Most of us are familiar with the notion of individual or autobiographical memory, the memories that we have based upon our own experiences. Such memories, to a large extent, help define who we are and how we act. Autobiographical memory, however, isn’t the whole story of who we are as remembering beings. There is a social component to our memory as well. How many of us directly experienced the attacks of September 11, 2001 or the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq? Even though most, if not all of us do not have such experiences, we all have memories of these events, and those memories help shape our politics today. Likewise, while none of us experienced the American Civil War, life in the American English colonies in the decade before the Revolutionary War, slavery, or American frontier life, both we and our culture have memories of these events, and these memories shape how we live and act today. Regardless of who we are or where we are from, there are historical figures and events that instill us with pride or fill us with anger or inspire us or shape how we react to new experiences and ideas. This is the effect of social memory. We are all members of mnemonic communities and we all undergo mnemonic socialization.

In the glossary to her book Theories of Social Remembering, Barbara A. Misztal defines mnemonic communities as “groups that socialize us to what should be remembered and what should be forgotten. These communities, such as the family, the ethnic group or the nation, provide the social contexts in which memories are embedded and mark the emotional tone, depth and style of our remembering” (160). She defines mnemonic socialization as “the process by which people, especially children, learn what should be remembered and what should be forgotten; they are familiarized with their collective past so that the continuity and identity of the group are sustained” (160). In addition to family, ethnic group, and nation, mnemonic communities can include schools, religious communities, formal groups such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and informal groups such as fans of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Novels or J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books or The Daily Show. Mnemonic socialization can occur in many ways, including through such things as rituals and practices, myths and stories, education, and experience.

The Assignment
Your assignment is to create a collage of good passages so as to build a textual portrait of yourself as represented by your social memory. Using the included discussion above and the quotation below as a starting point, draft a series of “verbal snapshots” which you can use to make your textual collage. In class, we will explore a number of prewriting activities which can help you generate passages to use in your collage. Also feel free to incorporate quotes from other poeple in your collage as long as you cite such work and you clearly indicate those words and ideas as the words and ideas of someone else. While not required, you might find it useful to include commentary on such quoted passages. Again, the theme of your textual collage is you as represented by your mnemonic communities and your mnemonic socialization. Your final Project should be 4 – 5 pages in length.

The Process
After drafting a number of verbal passages, try the following:

  1. Look through all the pieces you have written so far and choose the pieces or passages you like best.
  2. Write some more short pieces about you and your social memory. What you have already written will lead you to other possibilities and ideas.
  3. Spread all your passages out on a table or the floor so that you can see them all. If you’ve composed with a computer, print each of your passages out and separate them.
  4. Arrange your passages in what seems the best order. Feel free to do the choosing and arranging by interest or intuition.
  5. You will likely see the need to write a few more sections. Perhaps other experiences or thoughts come to mind, perhaps an opening or closing piece. Do not write a traditional introduction or conclusion.
  6. Revise it all.
  7. Copyedit your collage carefully so that it looks its best when your friends and classmates see it. Feel free to also play with formatting and design.

Based upon your peer-review, revise your essay at least once. Please submit your project in a folder or envelope with the following:

  • the final draft of your essay, clearly marked as such,
  • a printout of your essay, with comments, from Comment,
  • all earlier drafts of your essay, clearly marked as draft 1, draft 2, etc.,
  • any prewriting you may have,
  • and a brief cover letter discussing what changes you made after the peer review, why you made them, and why you believe your final draft successfully fulfills the assignment.

In the cover letter, feel free to also include such information as:

  • resources which you drew upon,
  • what you struggled with,
  • what you think you learned,
  • what writing and rhetorical issues you focused upon, etc.

The quote
In their introduction to Social Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives, Maria G. Gattell and Jacob J. Climo write:

Memory is the foundation of self and society. [. . .] Without memory, the world would cease to exist in any meaningful way, as it does for persons with amnesias or dementias that make them forget the self through inability to remember some or all of their past and to create new memories in their ongoing life. Without memory, groups could not distinguish themselves one from another, whether family, friends, governments, institutions, ethnic groups, or any other collectivity, nor would they know whether or how to negotiate, fight, or cooperate with each other. From the simplest everyday tasks to the most complicated, we all rely upon memories to give meaning to our lives: to tell us who we are, what we need to do, how to do it, where we belong, and how to live with other people. (1)