In her book Citizen, the poet Claudia Rankine writes the following (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/citizen-i.):

A friend argues that Americans battle between the “historical self” and the “self self.” By this she means you mostly interact as friends with mutual interest and, for the most part, compatible personalities; however, sometimes your historical selves, her white self and your black self, or your white self and her black self, arrive with the full force of your American positioning…

In his introduction to his book Nobody Knows My Name that we read for class, James Baldwin wrote, “In America, the color of my skin had stood between myself and me; in Europe, that barrier was down.”

These two examples deal explicitly with race, but there are any number of factors that could potentially lead this type of estrangement, wherein someone feels disconnected from themselves or others. For this assignment, you will write an essay that describes a similar sense estrangement based on prejudice. This prejudice can be something that you witnessed or experienced. In class, we’ll discuss any number of factors that can lead to prejudice and would potentially serve as a topic for the essay.

Structure

For this assignment, you will tell a personal narrative, which means that you will describe the specific circumstances of this experience using concrete, specific details, as well as analyze this experience for deeper meaning.

Because of the nature of this assignment, there is no specific structure that you are required to follow, however, here is a handout from Tacoma Community College that gives some good tips on crafting a personal narrative essay: writing a personal narrative.doc

Format

Please format your essay using the following guidelines:

12 point, Times/Georgia/Times New Roman font
Double-spaced
One inch margins (Left, right, top, bottom)
Name, date, title at the top