Instructions: The objective of this assignment is to give you an opportunity to reflect on your own musical history including what and who were responsible for shaping the “soundtrack” of your life story thus far.
This paper is designed to be a bit more informal than traditional research papers but that doesn’t mean you can skip traditional academic expectations. When you draw from a text, it needs to be cited properly in whatever citation style you’re most comfortable using. (I don’t demand ASA style, but I do expect a consistent use of something.) You are expected to blend personal reflection with an understanding of/grounding in the texts. That means you will need to be able to demonstrate that you have synthesized what you have read (or watched) and connect your own experiences to the course content. If you use personal experiences to either back up or critique something from the course materials and then make a specific textual reference to ground that experiential knowledge, you’re on the right track.
Technical Details:
Your autobiography must make substantial use of 3 sources from the class readings (for example this could be the foundational readings that we did from Charles Tatum on popular culture). That does not mean 1 reference per page is sufficient (see above).
Your Music Autobiography Assignment Paper must include the following elements
2-3 double-spaced, typed pages, size 12 font, Times New Roman with 1-inch margins (5 points)
Who or what shaped your early musical tastes? What types of Instruments have you been drawn to and why? (Sachs-Hornbostel system) (3 points)
Which Chicanx/Latinx musical genres have shaped your musical interests? If not, which other genres? (5 points)
Describe the Cultural Context of your musical autobiography including Etic vs. Emic. In what way(s) was “Ethnocentrism” a factor? (5points)
Include an Artist/song playlist at the end of your essay. You can list 5-10 songs/artists that are a representation of your “life’s soundtrack” (2 points)
Evaluation: Your written reflection will be graded based on how thoroughly you’ve integrated our key concepts and your ability to apply these concepts appropriately to your written analysis.
Criteria Checklist:
The following is a checklist that can help you make sure you have all required elements:
My paper is/has:
A cover page with my name, class/section, assignment, professor names, and date
Formatted with 1” margins all around
Double‐spaced
Typed in 12‐point Times New Roman
Numbered on all pages
Spell‐checked
Carefully edited and proof‐read
A clear thesis, supporting evidence from readings/lecture
A clear introduction, body and conclusion and clear paragraph structure.
Coherent and follows a clear structure that addresses all 4 requirements.
Self-Evaluation typed at the end of your essay.
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|