Assignment: Soundtrack of My Life, Provided by Sarah Scheidel

Assignment: Soundtrack of My Life, Provided by Sarah Scheidel

Handout One—Explanation, Outline, and Assignment 1

Explanation:

Music has become an integral part of human existence. It motivates us, calms us, inspires us, at times irritates us, and basically becomes the backdrop against which we live our lives. Songs can bring vivid memories of persons, places, and events from our own past and serve to document our thoughts, feelings, and emotions at a given time or place.

Assignment Outline:

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  Part I: Choosing significant events and finding appropriate songs to represent them.
  
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  Part II: Writing a reflective letter to your listeners. This part includes pre-writing, a first draft, revision, and a final draft.
  

Assignment Part I: We are going to brainstorm the types of significant events that you may have experienced in your lives so far. Once we’re done, you’re going to pick 5 events. Try to choose a variety of events—all sad or angry events will make for a downer of a soundtrack. You are going to put your events in chronological order (that’s the order in which they happened), and then pick a song that you think accurately represents each event. In choosing each song, think about the lyrics, the style and the tone or mood of the song. Remember that the music on soundtracks vary in style; your soundtrack should do so, also. Take your time and really explore possible songs in different genres of music. When you’re done, record the song title and artist below. Remember that songs MUST be school appropriate. I understand that this rule limits your choice of songs, but there’s just no getting around it in this setting.

Event	Song Title	Artist or Group

Handout Two—Song Explanation Pre-Writing Template
Instructions: Pre-writing is an important part of the writing process. Do not worry too much about specific wording or grammar when you fill in the information below; your answers here don’t even have to be in complete sentences. Remember that this is pre-writing, not writing.
Guide Questions: Use these questions to guide the last part of each explanation, below.

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  What is the name of the song and the artist?
  
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  What event in your life does the song represent?
  
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  Why does the song accurately reflect this event?
  
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  Why do the lyrics capture the essence of this event for you?
  
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  Why does the style or tone or mood capture the essence of this event for you?
  
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  What does each song reveal about the kind of person you are and what you think is important in your life?
  

Examples of categories your events might fall into:

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  Geographic
  
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  Family Structure
  
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  Relationships
  
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  Emotional Stages
  
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  Self-esteem
  
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  Goals
  
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  Recreation
  

Event Questions:

1. 
   Name this event.
   
2. 
   How old were you at the time?
   
3. 
   What are some important background details?
   
4. 
   Describe the event.
   
5. 
   Title and artist of the song you chose.
   

Using the guiding questions above, explain why this song appropriately represents this event (list some specific lyrics from the song that are meaningful to you).

Note to instructors: Have students answer these event questions for each of the 5 events.


Handout Three - Assignment Part II
Now that you have created the imaginary soundtrack to your life and completed the song explanation pre-writing, you are ready to write a reflective letter (addressed to “Dear Listener,”) that explains why you chose the particular songs that you did. For each song, you will need to reflect on the experiences, persons, places, etc. that inspired this selection. Obviously, you will also need to explain who you are as a person and then offer some type of reflection upon the imaginary album as a whole. Again, for the purposes of this assignment, be sure that this letter is school appropriate.

Use the outline below to write your letter. You need to cover each topic listed in the appropriate number of paragraphs. Remember, in reflective writing longer is usually better, and you can always go through and cut out any repetitive or useless information when you revise. It’s much harder to add meaningful information later with this type of writing.
Topic #1—Explanation of yourself (one paragraph):

This paragraph is basically a brief autobiography, and it will serve as your introduction. Introductions are super important in writing because they give the reader a frame of reference.

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  Who are you?
  
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  Where are you from?
  
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  Where are you now? etc.
  
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  Overall, what do you think this album says about you?
  

Topic #2—Explanation of each song on the soundtrack:

This section is made up of many smaller paragraphs. Song by song, be sure to explain:

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  What is the name of the song and the artist?
  
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  What event in your life does the song represent?
  
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  Why does the song accurately reflect this event?
  
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  Why do the lyrics capture the essence of this event for you?
  
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  Why does the style or tone or mood capture the essence of this event for you?
  
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  What does each song reveal about the kind of person you are and what you think is important in your life?
  

Topic #3—Final remarks and reflection on the soundtrack as a whole (one paragraph)

This paragraph is your conclusion in which you should thank your reader for taking the time to listen to your soundtrack and offer any final reflections upon this project as a whole.

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  In the introduction, you talked about what this album says about you. Revisit this idea.
  
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  What did you learn while you put together this album?
  
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  What do you think it tells people about you? Is this accurate?
  
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  What do you want people who listen to your soundtrack to think about you when they’re done?