Leading up to our class session where we got into groups and did peer reviews on the rough draft of our memoirs, I had a pretty decently written first paragraph which added up to somewhere between 170 and 180 words. The topic of my memoir is the outing of C.I.A. Agent Valerie Plame, so as such, it was, and will be, rather difficult to implement certain aspects of the assignment criteria into my story. As my partner for the peer review pointed out, an example of this would be the idea of bringing the reader into a fixed setting that they can visualize in their head. While my locale at these events occurred will be covered in my paper, I doubt it will compel the reader into visualizing it, as the vitality and overall tone of my memoir is not a scene I went through, but more a state of mind.
My partner and I discussed many things concerning the overall structure of our final drafts and how our essays could flow most effectively. I was told that my first paragraph did an excellent job of giving my memoir a foundation on the events that follow, but it would probably be best to set the scene and describe the details of the case in my second paragraph. This actually gave me a good push in the right direction as I have now outlined exactly what I want from each paragraph as the essay transpires. Most of my feedback centralized around one broad issue and that was about finding the most effective way to make a memoir out of a cultural event. My partner told me that as long as I take the body of my essay to describe how this event affected me then, and how I feel about it in retrospect, it should be everything that I want it to be.
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