ABSTRACT
This chapter describes work on retellings and essay writing, with a focus on how memory is used and externalized in the real world. These two examples are quite different from each other on the surface but they are related conceptually. The first example involves the social function of memory, as alluded to previously: people talking about their personal memories in conversation, writing about them in emails, and otherwise recapitulating their lives for others. The second example comes from education, and the argument is that essays written for educational purposes will sometimes be similar to retellings of personal memories. Good essays should tell good stories, just like interesting anecdotes are stories and not simple recitations of what happened. The chapter examines how memory is used in these two situations and to understand the downstream consequences of such externalizations. Externalizing memory through retellings and essays can in turn change the internal representations of past events and knowledge.
