Researching Your Identity Personal identity is a combination of various traits that differentiate one person from another. Many different factors shape a person’s identity. If you have worked through the lessons in this unit, you can refer to the notes and writing exercises that you may have completed in these lessons in order to review the various factors that influence a person’s identity.

You will then think about your own identity and the various factors combined that help create it. You will gather information about your identity and use it to make a creative representation of the story of how your identity has been shaped. For example, if your grandmother is Irish, you could learn something about yourself by looking at the history of Ireland. Or, if you are a part of a fantasy fiction book club or a garage rock band, you could try to explain how belonging to that group helps shape your identity.

Part A
Engage in a 10 minute freewriting exercise in which you can brainstorm and write about anything that comes to mind when thinking about your identity. Ask yourself these questions:

What makes up your identity?
Has your identity changed over the course of your life? If not, in what ways do you believe it has remained the same?
Remember to consider factors, such as where you have lived, the experiences you’ve had that have shaped how you feel and react to life, and your heritage and culture.

Your teacher will check your freewriting for answer variety and general productiveness. It will not be assessed for accuracy or grammatical correctness.

Type your freewriting in the space provided.

Part B
Look over what you have written and choose three terms that you would use to describe your identity. List these terms and research their formal definitions in a dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, or Internet resource. For each term you chose, describe in two or three sentences why you believe the term can be used to describe you.

Part C
Next, you will research and gather three artifacts that help you demonstrate why you would use these terms to describe your identity. An artifact is something made or created by a person and that might have some personal or cultural importance. Artifacts could include pictures, songs, objects, symbols, or anything that means something to you.

You can gather artifacts from your personal belongings, online resources, or other sources accessible to you. After gathering three artifacts, write a 50-word paragraph explaining what each artifact is and how it relates to your identity.

Part D
Now you will create an outline of the story of your identity based on the artifacts that you have gathered. The outline should introduce and describe your identity using the terms and artifacts. Also, provide a conclusion about what your identity is today. You will use the outline to write your story in Task 2 of this activity.

Your story should follow the following structure:

Introduction: Describe what your identity means to you. List three words you would use to describe your identity.
First supporting detail: Include one term and an artifact to support the term.
Second supporting detail: Include one term and an artifact to support the term.
Third supporting detail: Include one term and an artifact to support the term.
Conclusion: Restate how you would describe your identity. What aspects of your identity have changed since you were young? Which have stayed the same?