Pandemic Memory Project

Option 1. 750-1000 Words. Compose a non-fiction, narrative memory piece that recounts your experience of the Pandemic and other Events of 2020 changed your world. You will aim to tell the story of how a) the pandemic affected your world, and b) how you responded to this change.

Situating your memory within the period of the early 2020s, you will narrate your story in three parts which correlate to three periods of pandemic history: before, during, after.

After your Opening, address:

Pre-Pandemic Setting: Be specific in telling your reader about your life setting/situation prior to the pandemic. Where were you living? What was your normal routine? Introduce yourself and whatever other persons are relevant to your story, then detail your first awareness of the pandemic crisis. Setting includes establishing context: social, cultural, political. Your reader knows nothing about your or your world. Your first task is to set up the reader by describing the situation in which and out of which your story unfolds. Be specific.
Pandemic Experience: How did the pandemic affect the world around you and how did you respond to it? How did your experience change? You should discuss both the objective changes in the world around you (using facts recalled from memory and gathered by research) and your response (or your family's and friends' and community's responses) to the pandemic crisis. Situate your story in time and place. What was lost? What was gained? What hardships and struggles did you and your community have to cope with and face? What did you learn? How did your world change? Interpret the facts of your case and: Be specific.
Post-Pandemic Life: How are you (your family, friends, society different now? What did you learn? What losses or gains persisted into the post-pandemic period? What are you most looking forward to in a post-pandemic world? Be specific.

And then a brief Closing to your piece for the reader.

Option 2. You may record an Oral History Interview-- as audio or audio visual recording-- in which you interview another Dominican student in order to elicit the same narrative as above. If you choose to record an Oral History interview, you will need to compose-- in advance with Professor's approval-- the series of questions you intend to ask. Additionally, you will need to transcribe the recording to text for inclusion in our archive. Interview and recording should last about 20-25 minutes and include an introduction by the interviewer to the Pandemic Memory Project. The oral history work must meet all of the criteria listed above for the memory piece prompt. You will also need to provide one-paragraph description of your oral history interview for cataloging into our the DUC Repository archive.

On Sources:

In your piece you will quote and/or paraphrase a minimum of two sources (not from your own private archive):

A primary source from the pandemic period (a primary source like news article or video clip or photographic image you analyze)
A secondary source from the present or most recent post-pandemic past (2022-2023) discussing the long-term effects/impact/consequences of the pandemic for society, culture, arts, work, schooling, etc. [Recommendation: use the secondary source for your opening and/or closing.]

NOTE:

Throughout, your memory work should be informed by historically accurate information from credible sources, and situated in the real world. So your task is to establish the "facts of the case," provide and cite sources when you use them, master the chronology / timeline of important real-world events, use correct organizational names/titles, policies, etc. In general terms: individual memory should be correlated to (and certainly not contradict) objective historical facts from good sources. You are writing memory informed by accurate history-- not fiction or 'BS.'

For example, I would write:

In a Press Release of March 13th, 2020, the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Marin County Office of Education (MCOE) announced that all public school campuses will suspend classroom instruction to students for at least two weeks beginning March 16.

Notice how I specifically name the real-world organization enacting the policy suspending classes for students at specific schools in San Rafael (and the rest of the county). So if you went to school in San Rafael, your individual school and your individual experience is situated in this larger social and historical world affected by HHS and MCOE.