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A well written personal statement, as a component of a scholarship application, is vital to a successful application. Meggie Staffiera will be teaching a C-Start course titled "The auto-biographical sense: how we tell our story" which could provide the type of biographical thinking and self discovery that writing a good personal statement requires.
Details regarding the course are as follows. Contact
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for more information.
Course Code, Section: SPCL 400, 009
Instructor: Meggie Staffiera
Location: Graham Memorial 0213
Time: Monday, 5PM to 7PM
Credit: 1 hour pass/fail
Course Description:
/Who are you? How did you become who you are?
Think about how you would start to answer these questions if someone asked you them. Would you start with your name? Would you tell them where you’re from? Would you even /be able to start
We are asked these questions indirectly everyday. Most of the time, you answer them without even thinking about it; in casual conversation, by what you read for fun, by where you choose to sit in class, by the friends you have, as you plan out your classes for next semester…
The choices that you make tell the world /who you are /and /how you became that way.
This class will focus on these questions and the forms their answers take in everyday life... through writing, radio, film, and professions we will explore the methods by which our stories are told. We will discuss the interrelation between these methods and how a culmination of experiences or even one specific moment can shape our life stories and, ultimately, /who we are./
Class time will be discussion-based, with selected readings and audio listening from a variety of contemporary sources that have cultural, historical, and every-day significance to story-telling (including NPR’s “This I Believe”, Hemingway’s six-word memoirs, the PostSecret project…). Speakers from a variety of backgrounds and professions will be invited to facilitate discussion. Assignments will include readings and analyses of stories told in the aforementioned forms in an attempt to understand their autobiographical sense. (One week’s assignment will be to submit an entry to the Washington Post’s, Life is Short: Autobiography as Haiku – a column that publishes selected submissions of an under-100-word insight into life). The final project will be a culmination of the different oral and written methods of the auto-biography in a personal portfolio.
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