(1) Read through the list below and choose a place of significance to you. These are merely suggestions meant to get your creative juices flowing; you may have a place uniquely your own.

• • hometown
  • elementary school / any school
  • classroom
  • playground
  • grandparent's kitchen
  • an arcade
  • the specific tree you climbed
  • a fort you built
  • restaurant
  • library
  • garden
  • favorite bookstore
  • your choice

(2) Choose three ways that this place shaped who you are today and the lessons you learned while in this environment. This will eventually become your thesis statement.

(3) Revisit this place with all six senses as best you can (the sixth being emotional feeling--not the creepy one from the movie where the little boy saw dead people).

• What smells live inside this memory?
• What would we hear? What are the sounds associated with this memory?
• What would we see that was important?
• How did you feel, and what can you say to communicate that to your reader?
• What did you taste?
• What could you touch and feel in that memory?
• How/when/why did you engage with this place?

(4) Consider these other questions to help you paint a vivid picture (not all of these will apply to your chosen place):

• • What sorts of life were present? Animals? Plants? Specific people
  • What was there that was non-living? Was it indoors or outdoors?
  • What was the story behind the setting that allowed you to learn the lesson? What specific situation occurred that acted as your teacher?

(5) Working Outline

Your job is quite simple: Begin to think about the story that you'd tell us in the form of an essay about a place that's important to you and why. Fill it with details for us. We are there alongside you--learning the lessons, listening in. Remember- focus on the place and not on the people you associate with the place.