Bell Hooks:

Before you read: An autobiography is someone writing about their own life story, or about things that have happened in their own life.  I think important parts of an autobiography would be: obstacles in life that you have over come, your favorite memories, and anything else you want the reader to know.

Summary: Bell Hooks, Writing Autobiography, is about her struggle to write her autobiography. Hooks discribes the challenges she faced when wanting to write.  First she didn't want to be the one to write about her families secrets, and she didn't like the idea of writing her story as a fictional story because then there was a disconnect from her personally.  She found that an autobiography has its limits, because it is from a limited perspective of the person writing the autobiography. Someone else at the exact same event may have a completely different account of what happend. In the end she found that writing her story allowed her to feel reconnected with her past but in a more secure way. Her audience in this article is someone that struggles with writing about personal experiences, or finding themselves inspired to write.

Synthesis: I would first connect Hooks to Allen, and the idea of the inspired writer. It seems like Hooks is struggling internally to be inspired to write her autobiography. I would also connect this to Dias, because Dias talks about his struggles to write when he sits down to write, but how he never stops trying, Hooks does the same thing and is rewarded in the end. Lastly I would compare hooks to Malcolm x because he talks about being free learning to read, just as hooks discribes being free when she finally writes her autobiography.

Response	Quotation
I picked this because it was an attention getter that really made me want to keep reading the article.	"To me, telling the story of my growing-up years was intimately connected with the longing to kill the self i was without really having to die."
I think everyone has thing in their past or present life that they would like to write about just to get it off of their chest, but when it comes time to write they are blocked because what ever it is they want to write about they are afraid to say it. This the the struggle that Hooks is going through and she discribes that in this quote.	"Yet I could not begin even though I had begun to confront some of the reasons I was blocked, as I am blocked just now in writing this piece because I am afraid to express in writing the experience that served as a catalyst for that block to move."
I liked this thought because when you read an autobiography, you get so carried away by what one person is telling as their personal story that you sometimes forget there are multiple versions of the same story.	"This fact was a constant reminder of the limitations of autobiography, of the extent to which autobiography is a very personal storytelling, a unique recounting of events not so much as they have happend but as we remember and invent them."
I had a similar experience, completely different subject as hooks but I kept a journal for a few months writing down events. and now when I read it as a story , the events don't look like single events but the read as a story that is continuously playing.	"It had not occurred to me that bring one's past, one's memories together in a complete narrative would allow one to view them from a different perspective, not as singular isolated events but as part of a continuum."
As Hooks states remembering was part of a cycle of reunion, I think writing and remembering events that were maybe painful in life are always a way to heal and feel better about yourself or as Hooks says feel whole again.	"Remembering was part of a cycle of reunion, a joining of fragments, "the bits and pieces of my heart" that the narrative made whole again."

AE5: I think I would but myself in the discourse community of a suburb, growing up in the perfect town, going to a giant high school, growing up with large leaps in technology, adapting to change, and living in a time where acceptance of individuals for who they are is a major part of life.

Thoughts:  This article was by far one of the most engaging for me. I thought I read more as a story than an article. I too have many things I would like to write about as a way of expressing or freeing my mind of things, but when sitting down to write about  these things nothing ever comes to mind. I put up walls as Hooks does because I don't want to see the words written.