TL - Travel Memoir Lesson

Travel Memoir

Now that you have polished your descriptive writing skills, let's look at the memoir genre. People often incorrectly interchange the memoir with the autobiography because both are non-fiction narratives of one's own experiences. The difference between a memoir and an autobiography is that the memoir tells a story of a segment of the author's life or experience, and the autobiography covers the author's entire life. A memoir should convey the author's personal and emotional experience within the narrative. Authors usually write memoirs in the first person, but the memoir genre does not stipulate such a requirement. Sometimes telling a story in the third person allows the author to delve more deeply into his/her reflection of the experience.

Reading Assignment: "True Stories" by Kathleen Spivack

Click here to read "True Stories" by Kathleen Spivack Links to an external site.. Consider the shifting verb tense throughout the memoir. Usually, mixing tenses is unacceptable. Does Spivack do it intentionally here? If so, what does it achieve? Reflect on her decision to make and keep personal interjections throughout the text. Do her interjections help establish a voice in the story? If so, how? Which language devices does Spivack repeat throughout her memoir? How does asking rhetorical questions help establish her voice?

Spivack chose to write her memoir with a strong element of nature. She uses the balance of nature to describe her lack of balance without going into great detail about her own feelings, other than those of feeling totally alone. You may consider adopting this technique in this lesson's assignment.

Self-Assessment and Practice

Drag the items from the bottom to the slots on the right.

 

RESOURCES IN THIS MODULE ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) OR CREATED BY GAVS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. SOME IMAGES USED UNDER SUBSCRIPTION.