During my senior year in high school I took a language arts course in which my class read the novel The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Afterword, the instructor assigned us to write our own personal memoirs in the same style and genre of creative non-fiction. We were encouraged to turn in our final drafts hand-written in order to better personalize our stories. While in the process of writing I considered my audience to be my instructor and myself. I knew my instructor to be an avid traveler so I wrote my memoir about three separate travel experiences and the realizations I gained from each. I also considered myself an audience member because I figured I could learn something about myself through the process. As a result, my purpose in writing the memoir became to maintain my grade in the class as well as to discover more about who I was. I took an emotional stance throughout my paper. At the climax of my story I revealed my feelings of humility when I made a connection between three different experiences, which occurred in three different regions of the world, in which I was completely awe-struck by the brilliance of the night sky. In the spirit of creative non-fiction, I slightly exaggerated aspects of each experience. In hindsight, I realize that by including photos from my stories I could have improved the media/design aspect of my memoir.
