Family and Memory

CHAPTER 1

FAMILY AND MEMORY

Setting Up the Unit: Using Personal
Writing to Enrich Exposition

In this first chapter of The Blair Reader, Eighth Edition, students can read about
writers from diverse backgrounds who have interpreted their experiences in
ways quite similar to those of your students. Readers should see that some of the
writers’ attitudes and reactions are comparable to their own, despite the wide
variation in the demographics of the authors in this chapter. At the same time,
however, they should understand that differing backgrounds and points of view
do alter the ways in which the same experience might be lived, remembered, and
described by different people or at different stages within the same person’s life.

As we state in the introduction to this chapter, the writings that follow are
attempts to understand, to recapture, and to recreate pieces of memories that can
contribute to the writer’s sense of self. Through their memories of family
interactions, these authors write about their attempts to construct a coherent
identity for themselves out of the fragments of their own understanding and
their perceptions of others. The different writers approach the subject of identity
formation in a number of ways, but with at least one common element: All stress
the ways in which our self-identity is constructed socially, through the
interactions of home, work, school, extended family, friends, religion,
socioeconomic class, gender, race, and so on. These writers do not identify
themselves as fitting into one category and one category only. Rather, many
selections here trace a writer’s developing awareness of his or her identity
through a variety of family and social interactions. In all of the selections, home
and family are important components in the shaping and discovering of a sense
of self; however, almost every piece defines these concepts of home and family in
very personal and distinct ways.

Because of this emphasis on family and self-awareness, many of the readings in this chapter are autobiographical, leading students to write their own interpretations of their own experiences. Many instructors like to begin the semester with personal writing, assuming students can start the semester comfortably with subjects they know well—themselves, their families, and their homes. These subjects are accessible, yet rich with possibility. Students thus begin the course from a position of strength.

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Because students may not know themselves as well as they like to think they
do, autobiographical writing can also provide an opportunity to gain new insight
into subjects that may seem commonplace. Personal writing should encourage
students to learn something new about themselves through the process of
thinking and writing. Their knowledge may be based on their lived experience,
but they can (and should) use writing assignments as a chance to generate and
articulate some new understanding about themselves, their families, their impact
on others, and their roles in communities.

Regardless of the instructor’s motivation, personal writing is widely taught in
composition courses, and it not only provides a good departure point, but also
illustrates stylistic techniques students can use in other types of writing to
invigorate their prose. A simple anecdote can provide the framework for a
coherent and compelling paper on something seemingly unrelated; a childhood
memory can spark an image that unifies an argument; a reference to an event can
illustrate a point in a paper that might otherwise lack a personal connection.
Furthermore, with the advent of postmodern approaches in both teaching and
scholarship, autobiographical writing is breaking down the barriers of more
formal writing styles, accepting techniques that have previously been considered
inappropriate. This chapter provides the opportunity to introduce students to
some of these strategies.

Chapter Opening Images

The images introducing this chapter show two of the chapter’s writers with members of their families.

 What about each image defines each group as a family?

 Compare the two images—including the people, their facial
expressions, their body language, their clothing, and their
surroundings. Do the visual cues in each picture reveal certain
insights about each family depicted?

 To what extent do family photographs preserve memories? Are
certain memories incapable of being preserved in photographs?

Confronting the Issues

Option 1: Constructing Contexts

Before you assign any of the reading selections in this chapter, ask your students
to make a chronological list of what they consider the major milestones of their
lives—the “bests,” “worsts,” “firsts,” “lasts,” and “onlys.” Then, ask students to
conduct an interview (in person, by telephone, or by online chat) with one of

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their parents. In this interview, parents should be asked to do just what the students have previously done: They should trace their children’s lives from birth to the present, identifying significant milestones.

After the interview, each student should compare the two lists and write a
paragraph or two accounting for any discrepancies between them. In class,
encourage students to generalize about the differences between the way they see
their own lives and the way their parents see them. For example, are their
parents more or less likely than the students to remember negative milestones?
Which years do parents (and students) recall most vividly? Most favorably? Are
there any events that students see as positive and parents as negative, or vice
versa?

Finally, introduce to your class the idea that many of this chapter’s selections
depend on memory and on subjective views of parents or other family members.
Students will most likely realize by now that such readings cannot present a
“true” or “complete” picture of a family member’s life or of relationships within
families because there is no single, complete “truth.” As they read the selections
in this chapter, then, they should be concerned not just with facts but with
subtleties: motivations, emotional reactions, and differing or changing points of
view.

Option 2: Community Involvement

Some of the writers in this chapter describe childhood traumas or aspects of their
dysfunctional families. Sometimes their first year of college is the first time
students become aware that their own families’ shortcomings are not unique, so
these readings may be quite surprising and cathartic for some of them.
Conversely, other students may be surprised and irritated that so many readings
deal, to varying degrees, with family problems. You can use these tensions as an
opportunity to have students research a bit about the outreach services available
in the community surrounding your institution, and they can complete the
assignment by writing a handbook for incoming students outlining social
services available in the college community.

First, students can generate an initial list of family-centered problems
incoming students might have; this list may grow as they read the pieces in this
chapter. Next, you can bring in a local telephone book, a list of services provided
by your institution, any pamphlets from nearby public health services, and any
other reference sources you can identify. Students should also try to locate such
services on their own. Working in groups, students can find out more
information about the various resources available to students: hours, fees (if
any), hotline telephone numbers and Web sites, places and times for support
groups, types of aid offered, and so on. Finally, they can put it all together in a

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form that can be distributed to other incoming students (or to members of the community) as a public service.

Option 3: Cultural Critique

If you like to incorporate cultural critique into your class, this is a perfect chapter for examining the myths surrounding the “American family.” As a class, have students generate clichés and phrases that typically describe the American family: “Home is where the heart is,” “There’s no place like home,” “Blood is thicker than water,” “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” and “The family that prays together stays together.” In groups, then, students can offer a positive translation of what each saying is supposed to connote.

Next, students can offer the other side of the story to many of these clichés
and images without any help from the instructor. Sometimes the contradictions
are readily apparent. Others, however, will be more difficult, and you may want
to try some other strategies. For instance, ask students to identify the
assumptions implicit in the following: socioeconomic class, race, level of education,
religious affiliation, gender roles, sexual orientation, and so on. Illustrate the type of
family each of these terms describes; then, illustrate the types of “families” that
are excluded. Many of those families are described in the readings throughout
this chapter.

Option 4: Feature Film

Several films deal with many of the issues raised in the readings of this chapter:
rebellion, coming of age, alcoholism, competition, fragmentation, and death. For
a composition class, A River Runs Through It is a particularly effective film,
because the narrator is a writer, and writing plays a central role in several scenes.
If time permits, begin the unit with a screening of the movie, and use it to
compare and contrast with the readings you select from the chapter. Other
possible films include Persepolis, The Savages, Big Fish, Napoleon Dynamite, My Big
Fat Greek Wedding, The Family Man, Steel Magnolias, Ordinary People, The Great
Santini, Housekeeping, and Running on Empty.

Using Specific Readings

“HERITAGE,” LINDA HOGAN For Openers

Ask students to think and write about their various inheritances. What emotions are evoked by each? Which inheritance is most important?

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Teaching Strategy

Have students comment on how the speaker uses various sensory details to vividly portray her heritage. How does the speaker describe memories of sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste?

Collaborative Activity

Hogan’s poem explores contrasting images and emotions in relation to the speaker’s heritage. In groups, have students select one of the poem’s contrasts and discuss its significance to the speaker’s past.

Writer’s Option

Write a definition of heritage that encompasses other areas of life beyond one’s family. What creates heritage? How is heritage passed on to others?

Multimedia Resource

To learn more about Chickasaw Native Americans, have students visit the
official Web site of the Chickasaw Nation at http://www.chickasaw.
net.index.htm.

Suggested Answers for Responding to Reading Questions

1. The speaker devotes one stanza each to the gifts various family members gave
her, with the exception of her grandmother, whose influence is depicted in
two stanzas. The speaker’s parents, grandparents, and tribe all have made a
mark on her, but the complexity and significance of the speaker’s inheritance
from her grandmother are described in greatest detail.

2. The speaker alludes to her sense of displacement (and the “shame” that this
engenders) as a Native American (lines 28-30 and 40-44). The speaker’s
dislocation is shared with her family members and symbolized by the
different gifts they gave her.

3. The poem’s various symbols represent the range of the speaker’s emotions.
The poem’s language reveals that they are at once burdensome and uplifting.

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Suggested Answer for Responding in Writing

Answers will vary. The descriptive paragraphs should include various sensory details to create a vivid impression of the family members.

Additional Questions for Responding to Reading

1. In lines 14-18, the speaker describes her family’s oral history. How have songs
and silence shaped the speaker’s identity?

2. In lines 28-30, the speaker contrasts the colors brown and white. What is the
significance of this contrast? What connotations does each color have?

“THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS,” ROBERT HAYDEN

For Openers

 Have students find the few words in the poem that evoke sensation or
emotion: “ached,” “warm,” “cold,” “indifferently.” Based on this diction,
what is the poem about?

 Ask students to discuss the meaning of line 13: “What did I know, what did I
know?” What does the poet know now that he did not know as a child?

Teaching Strategy

Consider asking your students to comment on how adjectives and adverbs—

such as “blueblack,” “cracked,” “chronic,” “indifferently,” “austere,” and

“lonely”—set the emotional tone of the poem. Look at other aspects of diction. For example, why are the fires “banked”? Why does Hayden use the word “offices” to describe fatherhood?

Collaborative Activity

Ask your students to read E. B. White’s essay “Once More to the Lake,” which
appears later in this chapter. Then ask students, working in groups, to identify
similarities and differences in the two speakers’ attitudes toward their fathers.

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Writer’s Options

1. Rewrite “Those Winter Sundays” in the form of a eulogy to be

delivered by the son at his father’s funeral. You may use language

from the poem, but you should also blend in invented details that will characterize the father and present his struggle in specific terms.

2. From a retrospective point of view, write a one-page account of a
childhood memory of breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

3. Write a present-tense, chronological account of the childhood memory
described in the preceding activity. Compare the two approaches and
explain why one is a more appropriate presentation than the other.

Multimedia Resource

To learn more about Hayden, have students visit the Academy of American
Poets Web site, http://www.poets.org/.

Suggested Answers for Responding to Reading Questions

1. Obviously, the father’s love and the heat he brings into the house are

connected metaphorically. As chronic events are marked by long duration or
frequent recurrence, we can assume that the narrator’s family is struggling
economically and emotionally, and those stresses led to tempers flaring.

2. The narrator is older now and considering his past. Perhaps he and his father
are not emotionally demonstrative people. Perhaps the narrator is himself a
father now and understands how his children take his love for granted, just as
he took his own father’s love for granted.