What makes up a person's identity? Some scientists would say it's a person's genes — the traits that are passed down by a person's mother and father. Other people might say it's a person's reputation. In "What Your Most Vivid Memories Say About You," Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D., has a different take on what makes a person who they are.
Pair “What Your Most Vivid Memories Say About You ” with “Spin” and ask students to discuss how memory affects identity. How do students think the narrator and his fellow soldiers were impacted by the war during the end of their adolescence? What examples from the story show that many soldiers were still refining their identity roles and values during the war? How did the war become part of the narrator’s sense of self? Do students think the memories that the narrator relives are his self-defining memories? Why or why not?