write a personal memoir about a dificult decision you had to make

Write a memoir in the style of the examples you’ve read. This should accomplish three things:

Describe a unique experience of importance to you

Relate that experience to a social or cultural phenomenon

• Draw the reader’s attention to how your experience contributes to, is an example of, or how it enters into a dialogue with the trend you’re writing about.
• Start from an observation. Think back to a significant moment in your life—a near-death experience, going away to college, a difficult decision—and spend some time thinking about what the details of that moment meant.
• What did that experience mean? How did it dictate where you wound up? What was the impact on your life?

Relate yourself (your memory/experience) to a larger social problem or idea or phenomenon. If you write about the success of a rival, for example, you might talk more broadly about how we imagine success.

• Consider your involvement in a movement. Have you been a participant in a purposeful group?
• Collect details. The more vivid your re-imagining of a moment, the better you’ll be able to formulate a cohesive narrative.
• Consider cause and effect. What’s the relation between your memory and where you stand today? Why does that matter?
• Find significance. Decode this experience so that it fits into a larger argument.