Culture and Autobiography – Lesson 1

Cultureculture is not genetically inherited, it is shared, learned, and dynamic- never static in Autobiographya life story written by one's self, or life history, or memoirs of one's life - or a self-written life story with added cultural information (at this website) helps students to learn how to include cultural aspects into their own personal story.  Writing an autobiography or a personal history is not an uncommon pursuit.  However, most people do not understand how important cultural components can, and should be added, to those histories, which willa document stating how a person wants real and personal property divided after death More enrich them and make them more interesting and intriguing to readers.

Autobiographies and personal histories are most often read by loved ones, historians, or novelists looking for information that brings real life into focus.  Unless you are famous, your autobiography may not reach a large audience.  However, with today’s social mediawebsites and applications that enable users, on various devices, to create and share content or to participate in social networking networks your autobiography can be shared with a bigger audience even if you are not famous.  (Your autobiography might go viral!)

This is where adding cultural components comes in, to make your story more appealing to more people.  An autobiography or personal history may be broken down into parts of a narrative; but each narrative part should include detailed cultural components.  This makes it a unique cultural history, and not just a story “about me”.

Learning Objectives

After completing the Introduction to Culture and Autobiography – Lesson 1, you should be able to:

1) Define autobiography

2) Define ethnographya descriptive compilation of a culture based on fieldwork using ethnographic methods such as interviewing and participant observation; it may include research and description of an individual's culture, an entire cultural group, or a business culture

3) Understand how culture fits into every person’s story

4) Understand how enculturationlearning culture begins at birth; it is both conscious and unconscious learning, and both informal (within families) and formal (within institutions, as in church, or school), but most importantly it is passed down from generation to generation affects memorythe power or process of remembering what has been learned; something remembered, kept in the mind for later recall; something remembered from the past; a recollection

5) Understand the differences between an informal and a formal interviewa structured question-answer session carefully written down as it occurs; the questions are thought out and prepared ahead of the interview

6) Begin organizing materials for writing an autobiography  or personal history.

Study Plan for Introduction to Culture and Autobiography – Lesson 1

Step 1.

Watch the short video on “How To Write An Autobiography.”

There are many ways to begin, or start an autobiography, but no right or wrong way.  The main thing is to get organized and be consistent, first in gathering information, and second in your writing.  The video gives some good pointers, but each person is unique, and you may feel the suggestions are too restrictive.  The video is about writing, but getting started on an autobiography is much more than writing.  In some ways it is easier to interviewa formal meeting by one person to question another person; with regard to family history and genealogy, an interview can capture memories from relatives, before they are lost - an interview can verify, and/or preserve names, dates, places, and even people in photos.  Interview information is usually recorded on family group sheets or pedigree charts, or in a personal history story of an important event and write someone else’s story, or to help someone else write their story.  The reason that is so is because generally writing someone else’s story does not involve an emotional commitment on the writer’s part.

Step 2.

Click on the link to Culture and Autobiography Lecture for some helpful hints to get started.

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Step 3.

After reading the Culture and Autobiography lecture, post a comment about how important it is to connect your culture to your autobiography.

Step 4.

Watch the video on “Organize Your Photos.”  This video is about getting all of your digital photos, that you are taking now, (and in the past) into one place where they can then be organized according to the suggested ways in the video or other ways that you might decide on. These guys talk fast, so you have to listen closely – but technologythe system by which a society provides its members with things needed or desired, along with knowledge for the use and maintenance of the system More allows for reviewing again and again.

You might begin with gathering all the photographs that pertain to your life story.  I know, I know, the photos are all over the place, in boxes, drawers, folders, in the attic or basement, in the cedar chest, or maybe at grandma’s house.  The reason for beginning with photographs is that they are memory joggers.

As you sift through the photos and select the ones you think you will use, you must make sure they are labeled with the year (if you can remember) and each person in the photo should be named.  Then you should use post-its or some other form of note taking, to write down what you remember about what’s going on in the photo,  Where are you?  Who are you with?  Who are those people?  What was the occasion?  The photos will help to tell your story in ways that just plain words cannot. (A picture is worth a thousand words, right?)

Step 5.

Take a couple of days to gather up the photos that you have stored.  They might be in places you may have forgotten about.  Get the needed supplies for organizing your photos.  An old shoe box is good for the smaller photos, large folders or envelopes may be needed for the larger ones.  Just remember to organize in a way that makes sense to you.

 Step 6.

As you begin the process of organizing your photos, use them for memory joggers and make notes in a notebook, or on the back of the photos.  You will be surprised how many people in your old photos that you have forgotten their names – or the year the event took place. You may ask yourself, “What was that event?”

Step 7.

Review the first video again about “How to Write an Autobiography” and use the steps to begin making an outline for your unique story.

Step 8.

Review the Learning Objectives.  Make sure you understand the terms and concepts before continuing to Step 9.

Step 9.

Take the Culture and Autobiography  QUIZ 

Step 10.  Optional

Go to Culture and Autobiography Project – Fun Assignment

Please complete the quiz before proceeding to the next lesson 🙂