Making Sense of Our Lives:Finding Significance in Memoir

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NCTE 2004 Making Sense of Our Lives

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Making Sense of Our Lives:Finding Significance in Memoir

Specifically targeted to middle school students

Begins with a definition of memoir: A memory of the past, based on an event that sticks in the writer's mind. It includes the emotions the writer experienced, and the event has changed the writer's life.

The following is part of an overhead, but I couldn't read the entire thing because the text was too small.

Text Structure:

About One Memory

Told in the first person

Told in the past tense

Includes how the writer dealt with the problem

Has dialogue

"Zooms" in to show detail

?

?

A language arts block facilitated a curriculum change. "Thinking Through Genre". The Unit covers 4-6 weeks.

How have the moments in our life shaped us? Why do we remember certain events in our lives?

Start by having students read short pieces by writers of young adult books. They're easy for students to relate/connect to and helps facilitate the read-aloud/think aloud process. Helps facilitate the development of craft and plot. Likes to make copies of things for students so they can interact with the text-make overheads of the text so they can go through the process (think-aloud) together. Creates an "Emotion List" for students so they aren't stuck with "sad, made, glad" Uses a worksheet (don't have a copy of this...sorry).

Memoir Analysis:

What are the significant events? Which one is an "a-ha" moment? Why does this event have impact?

Discussion of the connections students make to the piece:

What are the universal themes? (this is the hard part) Provides students with a list of possible universal themes--introduced at the beginning of the year--used all year long in both reading and writing (again, don't have a copy of this, but try this)

Usually does four pieces with students before going on to literature circles.

Strategy based literature circles instead of roles: Questioning, Making Connections, Making Inferences, Determining Importance. Uses a wide variety of literature with the students, all of it focused on adolescence. Students read longer chunks of text and only discuss 2-3 times so they don't get "tired" (longer chunks of text defined as 75-100 pages). There is time during class to read and to complete the role sheets.

Discussion about questioning specifically. Presenter has designed a "Question Card" to help students create better questions. While I do not have a copy of this, I would imagine that it would not be difficult to create question stems for your students and to then teach them how to use the question stems to stimulate their thinking.

Last Updated April 11, 2011

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Specifically targeted to middle school students

Begins with a definition of memoir: A memory of the past, based on an event that sticks in the writer's mind. It includes the emotions the writer experienced, and the event has changed the writer's life.

The following is part of an overhead, but I couldn't read the entire thing because the text was too small.

Text Structure:

About One Memory
Told in the first person
Told in the past tense
Includes how the writer dealt with the problem
Has dialogue
"Zooms" in to show detail
?
?

A language arts block facilitated a curriculum change. "Thinking Through Genre". The Unit covers 4-6 weeks.

How have the moments in our life shaped us? Why do we remember certain events in our lives?

Start by having students read short pieces by writers of young adult books. They're easy for students to relate/connect to and helps facilitate the read-aloud/think aloud process. Helps facilitate the development of craft and plot. Likes to make copies of things for students so they can interact with the text-make overheads of the text so they can go through the process (think-aloud) together. Creates an "Emotion List" for students so they aren't stuck with "sad, made, glad" Uses a worksheet (don't have a copy of this...sorry).

Memoir Analysis:

What are the significant events? Which one is an "a-ha" moment? Why does this event have impact?

Discussion of the connections students make to the piece:

What are the universal themes? (this is the hard part) Provides students with a list of possible universal themes--introduced at the beginning of the year--used all year long in both reading and writing (again, don't have a copy of this, but try this)

Usually does four pieces with students before going on to literature circles.

Strategy based literature circles instead of roles: Questioning, Making Connections, Making Inferences, Determining Importance. Uses a wide variety of literature with the students, all of it focused on adolescence. Students read longer chunks of text and only discuss 2-3 times so they don't get "tired" (longer chunks of text defined as 75-100 pages). There is time during class to read and to complete the role sheets.

Discussion about questioning specifically. Presenter has designed a "Question Card" to help students create better questions. While I do not have a copy of this, I would imagine that it would not be difficult to create question stems for your students and to then teach them how to use the question stems to stimulate their thinking.