In some ways, too, as Berlin would say, this shifting of definitions is as much an ideological shift as anything. Yet the new definitions do not reject these older meanings. The newer meanings contain the previous definitions but seek to focus them in new ways and according to new perspectives. In my Practicum class as we began designing our personal narrative unit plans, we discussed the role of memory as one of the five canons of classical rhetoric. Dr. Dew explained that the five canons are still present within the discourse of composition process, but they are discussed differently.
Memory plays an important part in the witing process, especially for personal experience papers.
For the personal narrative, we designed idea generation activities to help our students tap into their memories to find possible topics for their paper. In my class, memory does not refer to reciting speech with the use of mnemonic devices, but to one way of discovering possible content for writing. No longer are memories considered perfect representatins of reality. Instead, reasearch indicates that we consciously and unconsciously alter and rewrite our memories. These memories constitute our individual truths, but not an absolute, universal Truth.