Non-Fictional Prose Course

I really enjoyed reading "Texts Without Context" by Michiko Kakutani, especially the first section concerning plagiarism. Jaron Lanier makes a case for plagiarism by describing the "mashup" of thinking in the modern world as positive because new culminations of previous thinking lead to ideas "more important than the sources who were mashed." ...These ideas, while not obviously related to our fact vs fiction discussion, made me see the fact vs fiction problem in a new way. Maybe the "mashup" of ideas that Lanier describes is similar to a memoir writer's "mashup" of experiences.

 My name is Tyler and I am extremely excited to take this course. I read the article "Memory and Imagination" and enjoyed the quote, "True memoir is written, like all literature, in an attempt to find not only a self but a world"(Hampl). 

In this portfolio, due by 12:30 on Friday, December 17,  I am asking you to collect and reflect on the written and spoken work you have done for this course. This portfolio project invites you to chronicle what has happened in your evolution both as a writer and a speaker in class, and to contribute to and assist me with the evaluation of your work. So--