Part B: plan the steps of your writing assignment To structure and plan the memoir, create a simple three-stage timeline like the one that follows. Fill in the chart with words or phrases that represent the ideas you will use in your memoir. a) What happened when you (Warren Pryor) were a school boy, when you graduated, and when you started working at the bank? Write as if you are Warren Pryor, using the first person point of view. b) What were your feeling at each stage of your development? Add notes about those feelings to each stage of the timeline. c) At the appropriate places on the timeline, write what you think your parents’ motivates and expectations were.

It seems your assignment is to take the Alden Nowlan poem “Warren Pryor” and create a fictional memoir from his point of view. Because this is a creative, individualized assignment, there is no one right answer. To assist you, I am going to refer to the poem and suggest different routes you could take.
A.) According to the poem, Pryor’s parents were farmers who worked twice as hard to provide for their son’s education. When Pryor was very young, he likely worked on the family farm, but once he attended school, the poem states he was “boarded . . . in town.” So, Pryor likely didn’t see his parents much during the school year, which might have been lonely or difficult. He also probably dedicated his time to his studies, since he had little else to do. Because of this, Pryor might have graduated in the top of his class, in order to please his parents. However, once Pryor got a respectable, well-paying job that made his parents proud, Pryor felt as if something was missing. He worked his whole life so that he could end up in a clean, professional place, unlike his parents’ dirty farm, but it was never his dream. He is probably confused about his dissatisfaction and “rage,” as the poem states, and feels trapped in a job he hates just as much as his parents hate theirs.
B.) As mentioned above, Pryor likely felt alienated from his parents (physical separation), which could have been lonely and sad as a young child. As the years passed in this way, Pryor might have developed an independent desire to succeed—to please his parents but also to show them that he didn’t need them around in order to succeed. He also might have felt alienated from his peers because of his parents’ working-class background. At a boarding school, many of the students tend to be wealthy. This contrast could have motivated Pryor to prove to his snooty peers that he was just as good as they believed themselves to be. When he graduated and saw how proud his parents were, he also likely swelled with pride. On his first day of work, he was probably excited to experience a lifestyle to which he was unaccustomed. He wanted to prove himself. Yet, the mundane reality of a white collar job caught up with Pryor. He likely thought he was supposed to be happy with his life, and because of that he becomes bitter. That bitterness now defines his existence.
C.) Like many parents, Pryor’s just wanted what was best for him. They scraped together the money to afford his education by performing backbreaking work on their farm. They thought that it would give him a “passport” to a better future. That’s why they were so proud when he finally graduated—because they believed their goal had been achieved. They are impressed by his “milk-white shirts” because they see them as proof that Pryor has made it in the world. This means they probably would react negatively if Pryor quit his job, since they would see it as a squandering of all the hard work they dedicated to his success.