This past week my class has been mining their writer’s notebooks for possible memoir ideas. Memoir is a hard concept for my kids to wrap their heads around, because it’s so different from the genres we have studied thus far this year. But as we finish reading The Giver and talking about the importance of memories, it seemed apropos.
I’ve been working on my own examples to share with them, too. We’ve read examples of memoirs from Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka, Knots in My Yo-Yo String (Jerry Spinelli), and When I Was Your Age, Volume Two: Original Stories About Growing Up (various memoirs by children’s authors), but my own examples always seem to ring truer for them. So this weekend I will be writing a few of my own memoirs to share this week when they choose their seed ideas!
Filed under: writer's notebook, writer's workshop, writing | Tagged: memoirs, writing with students |
The Reading Zone 
We’re going to finish up The GIver this week too. I like your idea as using it as a link to memoirs and the importance of memories. We are reading The GIver as a link to our Take a Stand unit.
Oh man, I remember reading the Giver. I think we read it in 6th and 10th grade. I was actually telling Kyle about it the other day because he had never read it. It’s one of those books that sticks with you into adulthood.