21W.022: Reading and Writing Autobiography
Spring 2020
Susan Carlisle
Essay #2: The “Personal Investigative Essay” (PIE)
“Write about what you don’t know about what you do know.”
Annie Dillard A Writer in the World
Overview
As we will see in our readings for this unit, writers often draw upon historical, scientific, literary, and other sources to enrich their personal narratives and essays. For this assignment you will not be writing a “straight” autobiographical narrative, but rather what is known as a “familiar” (first person) essay in which you grapple with a question about something that arises from your own experience (s). Once you figure out a viable question — and one that you genuinely care about or find personally intriguing—you will conduct outside research to find out what other thinkers and writers can contribute to your understanding of the topic. You will use primary and secondary sources such as books, interviews, academic articles, and news stories. However, the aim here is not to conduct exhaustive research on a given topic or to cite lots of sources. What’s important is to choose relevant evidence and sources—ones that will both complicate and support your ideas— and to use these sources well, integrating them gracefully into an essay that balances narrative and analysis. The story of your thinking will serve as the backbone of the essay.
Research and Writing Skills
During this unit, we will discuss the key skills for writing research-oriented essays. Your first step will be to carefully think about your life experiences and personal interests in order to determine an investigative questionabout a particular topic or opinion. In class, we will talk about what a good question might look like, drawing upon the investigative essays of MIT student writers as well as other published authors. You will bring your question with you to our library session on October 15th, when we will meet with the reference librarian Sofia Leung; she will help you get started on your thinking and writing, and also talk to us about the resources available through the excellent MIT libraries. Based on your library research, you will compose a short annotated bibliography, which will help you figure out which sources will be most useful to you in grappling with your question. In class we will review the skills of paraphrasing, summarizing, and citing sources. Since this is an exploratory essay in a class that focuses on narrative, you will be encouraged to organize your essay with an inductive structure that reflects the process and “story” of your investigation; instead of using the more common deductive argumentative framework in which you state a thesis at the outset, you will “arrive” at your central insight/thesis at the end of the essay. In conference, pod-shops, and workshops, we will talk about how to organize, draft, expand, and revise your essay.
Predraft 2.1: The Investigative Question
“For the scientist the formulation of questions is almost the whole thing. The answers, when found, only lead to other questions.” D.W. Winnicott , “Home is Where We Start From.”
The most engaging and persuasive essays that draw upon multiple sources are inspired by at least one really good question. This question will help you narrow the scope of your research and choose the appropriate primary and secondary sources to enrich and complicate your thinking. To formulate a good question, it will help to first come up with a few questions—something we will do in class on 3/2. These questions should be inspired by specific life experiences: things that you have experienced, observed, witnessed, wondered about, or find deeply puzzling.
Our readings offer good examples of memoirs and essays inspired by a range of personal questions. Henry Louis Gates Jr., for example, in “In the Kitchen,” has a question about “good” versus “bad” hair; in his essay he considers his question in light of his own experiences, American culture, and African American history. Rebecca Skloot, in her personal investigative book The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, explores the question “who was Henrietta Lacks?”The title of Michael Pollan’s essay is “Why Mow?” In this essay he questions why he should mow his lawn, and this leads him to investigate the history and culture of lawns in the United States. MIT student Noah Caplan is fascinated by the ideas and science behind a “squeeze chair” and analyzes its design, based upon his own experiences as someone with an autism spectrum disorder and some research he does on the thinking of the scientist/engineer Temple Grandin. Students in past classes have also asked questions about why they like spicy food; whether being introverted is beneficial for scientists like themselves; why taking notes with a pen and paper is helpful for someone with ADHD; and why someone is unable to become a great athlete.
To formulate a good question, it will help to keep in mind two things:
1)The question should have no simple or obvious answer but it should be answerable with available evidence. (This doesn’t mean that you will necessarily reach a satisfying or definitive answer. Remember: “essayer” means “to try”!)
2) The scope of the question should be such that you can address it in a 6-8 page paper and draw upon outside sources.
With your question include a paragraph in which you briefly and simply tell the story of how you conducted an initial investigation. For example, did you first Google your question? Did you call or text friends or family? Did you track down a source of any kind—an article, a podcast, a YouTube video, etc.?
Due: March 4th (be prepared to present to the class); Revision: March 9thth (at library session)
Predraft 2.2: Annotated Bibliography
In an annotated bibliography, you write the bibliographic information (author, title, publisher or website, etc.) about a source, briefly summarize the source (two or three sentences), and then explain why and/or how this source will be useful for your essay (two or three sentences). You will write an annotated bibliography of five sources you have found. In addition to print sources, video sources (such as a TED talk, YouTube video, documentary) and audio sources (a podcast or lecture, for instance) are acceptable. I will give you more specific written guidelines for this important pre-draft, along with some examples from student writers.
Due: 4/1 (email Word doc by midnight)
Predraft 2.3: Introduction and Outline (of any kind)
In a paragraph or two (no more than one page total), orient the reader to your subject. To engage the reader and establish focus for your ideas, pose a key question or problem. Next, jot down a brief outline. This can take the form of a more conventional outline or of a “mind map” in which you graph or draw your projected essay. Think about your audience, as always: these outlines should be clear enough for readers to see how you will grapple with your question and what role your sources will play.
Due: 4/1 (email Word doc by midnight)