| The following is a writing assignment provided by Diane McPherson, a writing teacher at Ithaca College. It has been adapted slightly for use by Mother Millennia visitors. In addition to using this assignment with her writing classes, Diane also used it to write her own work, "Notes For An Archaeology of the Mother," which she contributed to Mother Millennia. Remember as you read the suggestions here that they are only intended to help get you started. The "archaeology assignment" proposes a special way of thinking about writing a mother story. It is only one way, and any part of it, even a sentence or phrase, might be enough to open an idea of where to begin. |
| An Archaeology of the Mother
To write this story, you will need to think like an archaeologist. That is, search for the "truth" of your mother (or mother-equivalent) as an archaeologist would search through artifacts, bones, unearthed sites for information about a long-vanished people. What you are trying to do is to bring to life (for someone who doesn't know her) a human being who is more than her utilitarian title: mother. |
| Exercise I: Mother artifacts In this exercise, think about the significant and symbolic things your mother surrounds (or surrounded) herself with. These can be anything: a favorite sweater; a television program she must watch; a word or phrase that is characteristic of her way of speaking; a collection of china figurines; a name your father, or someone in her family, or your family, calls her; a familiar habit, like wearing her glasses on top of her head and then being unable to find them; an annoying tendency, like her habit of calling you by a nickname, "Pussycat" or "Lovie-duck." Don't just list these. For every "artifact," write a paragraph about the thing and what you think it reveals about your mother's inner self. Exercise II: History with your mother in it For this exercise, you need to find out what year your mother was born, and where, and under what circumstances (as fully as you can.) Then do some detective work to find out what historical events (and her-storical events) were happening then, throughout her childhood, and up to the time she was your mother. That is, write about "history" with your mother in it, and imagine how some historical events which happened during your mother's childhood and young adulthood affected her life and her understanding of herself. These events should include: wars; immigrations; family catastrophes; changes in social policy; changes in social attitudes, etc. Exercise III: Discovering the Mummy Write as thorough a description of your mother as you possibly can. Pretend you have just unearthed her during an archaeological dig, and attempt to "look" at her as objectively as possible. Describe her for someone who has never seen her. Omit no identifying details. Don't just write about a face. Compare it to your own face, make us see it, compare it to Lauren Hutton or John Wayne (whatever). For this exercise, photographs would be especially useful. And don't just describe a static face. Show us what she's doing from the neck down, how she moves, what she wears, how she seems to relate to the camera, what landscape she's surrounded by and where that landscape is located in the country, world, and even the universe. Exercise IV: Mother as Hero of her own Drama Write at least one story in which you can depict your mother as a hero. To do this, you will probably need to redefine your concept of heroism. Choose something you know she once did (something you have remembered, or something you find out about from one of her siblings, her parents, neighbors, best friend, etc.) Then imagine it from her point of view: What it must have felt like for her to do it. How difficult it must have been. What social forces were aligned against her being able to do it. Think about things like giving birth, leaving home and moving to another city or state, going away to college when no one in her family had ever done so, violating some social rule (like marriage out of her race, or divorce, or going on welfare, or going to work while her husband stayed home). Finally: Put all of these exercises together with whatever else you want to say and write an essay about your mother (or mother-equivalent) in which you show her as a human being--not merely as someone who belongs to you. |
