AP Language AP Language Find your assigned seat Complete the sheet on your desk. Use your syllabus from yesterday!

Unit 1: College Essay, Frederick Douglass, basics of rhetoric and close reading, analysis Six word memoirs could help you brainstorm ideas for college essay. Also think about economy of words, and the stories behind carefully selected ones.

For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.

Five years on, participants have contributed more than half a million mini-memoirs. Smith has published five compilations of the intensely personal accounts and continues his online quest to spark the creativity of aspiring writers. "There is inspiration everywhere," he says. "Even if you don't think you're a storyteller, you are."

Samples…. Read all. Choose one. What’s the story?

Writing a six-word memoir... In order to narrow down a life into six words, a writer needs to begin with many words and ideas. Follow these instructions to complete a six-word memoir.

Start with a list List as many words, topics, memories, or personality traits as you can about yourself – activities you do, items, belongings, places you like, and feelings you have. Don’t edit, cross out, change, or rewrite words. Don’t worry about spelling – just write. You are going for quantity, so write as much as you can in about three minutes. You should fill at least one full page.

Example list: Singer, writer, happy, tired, overworked, camping, colorful, shoes, sea shore, dragons, faeries, teacher, Spanish, Internet, laughing, cartoons, 70s, rock music, Jeep, teddy bears, church, baths, jingles, gum, crayons, super heroes, technology, legos, reading, Saturday morning, dancing, weight lifting, Ziggy, more shoes, sunrises, mother, daughters, snakes, dogs, mythology, thinking, dreamer, fries…

Now, circle the two or three words that stand out for you, the ones that you could say more about.

Example list: Singer, writer, happy, tired, overworked, camping, colorful, shoes, sea shore, dragons, faeries, teacher, Spanish, Internet, laughing, cartoons, 70s, rock music, Jeep, teddy bears, church, long baths, jingles, gum, crayons, super heroes, technology, legos, reading, Saturday morning, dancing, weight lifting, Ziggy, more shoes, sunrises, mother, daughters, snakes, dogs, mythology, thinking, dreamer, fries

Pick one item and freewrite about the thought. That means you just start writing about that idea, object, role, or event. The only rule is don’t stop writing for at least two or three minutes. Whatever comes to mind is fair game. mother

Synthesize As a result of the freewrite, you have a sense of your topic. Synthesize, combine the individual elements into an understandable whole, your writing into a phrase that captures the essence of what your topic means to you. The topic of the previous writer was “mother.”

a 6-word memoir… Helping them grow ages me daily.

Final effort: Create an image with the six- word memoir. It should be on a blank, standard piece of 8 x11.5 paper. It should include the six words as well as your own images to illustrate. These can be drawings, photographs, etc. You also need to attach a one paragraph explanation of your six word memoir. Turn in paragraph, and 6 word memoir with visual representation tomorrow.

Seeking home, balance outside a turbulent world

Final effort: Create an image with the six- word memoir. It should be on a blank, standard piece of 8 x11.5 paper. It should include the six words as well as your own images to illustrate. These can be drawings, photographs, etc. You also need to attach a one paragraph explanation of your six word memoir. Turn in paragraph, and 6 word memoir with visual representation tomorrow.

Reminders Turn in syllabus quiz today or tomorrow. Bring summer assignment and six word assignment tomorrow Bring Strunk and White tomorrow. Also bring Prose if you have it. Make sure you have binder, class notebook.