Alex Allen

Ms. Zayn

Advanced Lit/Comp

2 October 2009

Outline

Introduction:

A. Proposal: This paper will describe how Maya won the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

B. Thesis Statement: Maya Lin won the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Contest because of her background, her knowledge of architecture and her ideas for the Memorial.

Body:

A. Background

1. Maya Lin’s parents were very artistic people and because of this she was interested in art and literature.

a. Her mother was a poet and a professor of Oriental and English Literature.

b. Her father was a well-known ceramicist and dean of fine arts at Ohio University

B. Architecture:

1. Maya Lin took a class on architect at Yale University

a. At the last minute she switched classes to cemetery architecture.

b. Her teacher made them enter the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Contest, which she won.

C. Memorial Design

1. The vision for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial design came to her while at the Constitution Gardens.

a. After she knew what she wanted to do she constructed a model out of clay to model her vision

b. When her professor saw it he encouraged her to enter it into the contest, which she did after she put the clay model idea unto paper.

Conclusion: Maya Lin’s love for sculpting was influenced by her background, and because of it she won the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Contest.