READING RESPONSES and WRITING

We have already looked at how we dream in images and what those images may represent.

Now we will examine “ways of seeing” in memory. 

First, read the three assigned readings, “Memory,” “A Memory Artist” and the excerpt from “Speak, Memory.” As you work on the IMAGES AND MEMORY JOURNAL, (excerpts to be presented in class), consider the readings as well as the following:

When we “remember,” we also remember in images. But exactly what we remember is very selective. We don’t “remember” every detail, but, rather, we “select” certain images when we “remember” that we connect to lived experience. What is the nature of these connections? Are they emotional? Psychological?  Why does one image “appear” to us over another?

• How do our memories color the actual experience over time?


• Do we “remember” as the experience actually was – or are our memories connected to feelings more than facts?


• Do we ”see” a memory from the point of view we have today?


• Or rather, from the point of view we had when we had the experience – from the point of view, for example, of the age we were when we had the experience?


• Are our memories, and therefore the images attached to them, altered over time?


• How?

CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISE (BE PREPARED TO SHARE IN CLASS)

This is a creative writing exercise about images and memory.

• Describe one image connected to a happy memory you have. The image may be a “full shot” or a fragment of a larger picture. What is your connection to the image today? You may describe this image “realistically” OR more “abstractly” – for example, in the form of a poem. 


• Describe one image connected to a dark memory you have. The image may be a “full shot” or a fragment of a larger picture. What is your connection to the image today? You may describe this image “realistically” OR more “abstractly” – for example, in the form of a poem.


• Describe a landscape you “see” from your memory. What is this place? What emotions do you connect with it? Why do you think you “remember” it in this way?