Teachers

Guide for Memoir Course

ImagineYou are the son of a young woman from Wichita, Kansas and a young man from Kenya. They met and fell in love as students at the University of Hawaii. But when you were two, your parents separated, and your father moved first to Boston to study for a PhD, and then returned to Kenya. Your mother remarries, and your family moves to Jakarta, the Indonesian homeland of your new stepfather. When you are ten, your mother sends you to Hawaii to live with your grandparents so that you can take advantage of the better educational opportunities there. Your family enrolls you in a private, college preparatory school where you are one of six African-American students. In these first ten years of your life, you have lived as an African-American child in different cultures, different geographical locations, and amongst people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds as well as different socio-economic classes. For the next twenty years, these experiences, and the ones that follow, shape how you look at the world. When you are 34, your write your memoir, where you recount the story of your life, meditating on the themes of race and class, family and community. This is the heart of Barak Obamas memoir. Teachers Guide: Essential Questions Why do we desire to tell the story of our lives? What are the essential elements of the story of your life? Purposes This course has been created to meet 6 central purposes:
Memoir Teachers Guide 1

1. Learn about the genre of Memoir. 2. Provide students with scaffolded access to great, challenging mentor texts, texts that are found in the high school and college curriculum. 3. Learn the writing process. 4. Significantly improve students writing. 5. Make writing a habit and practice. 6. Make reading a habit and practice. Students of any writing level can participate in this course, as all of the assignments are open-ended, assuming students will do their best on them and improve from wherever they begin as writers. The Structure This course is divided into three 5-week modules, each centered on a particular stage of the writing process. Modules can easily be shortened in order to accommodate a quarter or trimester length course cycle. Module one: Genre Immersion and Generating Ideas In this module students explore stories and the stories of great memoirists to strengthen their reading and writing skills. Students will engage in a wide range of activities designed to help them remember significant memories, write about them, and connect them with one another. During this module students will learn strategies for the brainstorming stage of the writing process, develop techniques for generating ideas and for recalling memories, and learn to record their writing ideas in a Writers Notebook. Module two: Framing and Organizing One of the most important and challenging aspects of the writing process is narrowing- down ones ideas into a focused, purposeful piece of text. In this module students will experience the planning and structuring stages of the writing process. They will explore the concept of theme, considering a focus for their memoirs, and they will experiment with multiple possibilities for structuring their memoirs. By the end of this module students will create both an outline and a first draft of their memoirs. Module three: Revising and Publishing During the third module students will learn about the last stages of the writing process: revising and publishing. They will practice many specific strategies of revision, and will be able to deeply consider the structure, meaning, and language choices that will be most appropriate for their memoirs.
In addition to writing about their lives, students will read and listen to an extensive array of memoirs, selected because of their capacity to mentor students in the genre. There are over 60 different memoir excerpts available to students to read and listen to.

Memoir Teachers Guide

How will students show what they have learned? Here are a few of the 40 performance tasks students will undertake in this course: 1. A Published Memoir: The seminal project for this course is a Published Memoir that will go through multiple drafts of the writing process. 2. Audio recording of a personal story: Create an audio recording, telling a favorite personal story, modeled after the stories heard on the radio shows The Moth and StoryCorps. Students have the choice to submit this story to the radio shows. 3. Important Person Description: Compose a description of a person who is important in the students lives. 4. Glog: Create an on-line poster of an independently read Memoir. 5. Scene Writing: Write a scene about an event from their life 6. Timeline: Create a timeline of their life. 7. Memory Drawing: Draw or paint an image of one of their memories. 8. Self-Portraits: Create two self-portraits, one literal, and one metaphorical. The Course Design This course uses the basic structure of a Writers Workshop, but within the context of a blended classroom. The course is specifically designed to provide students with choice about the activities they engage in, and when they engage in them. Each module has 6 types of activities: 1. An Overview 2. Independent Reading and Keeping a Readers Notebook 3. Free-Writing and Keeping a Writers Notebook 4. Working with Mentor Texts 5. Small Scale Performances 6. College Prep Performances 1. Overview: This is an opening series of ungraded activities at the beginning of the module that will provide students with a sense of what is to come in the module. For the first module, the overview is an introduction to the genre of Memoir. Teachers can work with the whole class on these activities, or let students move at their own pace. Or create a balance of each. 2. Independent Reading and Keeping a Readers Notebook: Each module, students will read for 30 minutes on 22 separate occasions. For most students, this will be the equivalent of one memoir, as they must select a memoir that is at their reading level. Students who are struggling with reading may end up selecting memoirs that are much shorter, in which case they should read more than one. Whats important is that they read a minimum of 22 times over a 5-week period in order to keep practicing reading.
Memoir Teachers Guide 3

In addition to reading, they will keep a Readers Notebook. The Notebook will have 3 purposes: A chart where students keep track of their Independent Reading, including each Mentor Text they work with (see below). 8 entries that summarize and reflect on what they are reading, using the Independent Reading Response Ideas document as a source for writing. 10 Readers Notebook entries that reflect on the Mentor Text Memoirs they are listening to. Assessment of the Readers Notebook: Much of whats in the Readers Notebook can be assessed by spot checks and conferences (see below for a discussion on conferences) with students. However, at least 10 of the Mentor Text Reflections should be assessed using a rubric, because they will provide you and the students with the opportunity to assess students capacity to respond to literature in meaningful ways. The Common Core Standards to be assessed in the Readers Notebook:
7.RI.2 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well- structured event sequences. Analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text (e.g., how ideas influence individuals or events, or how individuals influence ideas or events). Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how the author distinguishes his or her position from that of others. Read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 6-8 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. Read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 910 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. (Mentor texts: scaffolded w/ mp3s)

7.RI.3

7.RI.6

7.RI.10

9-10.RI.10.10

Not all standards should be assessed in each entry. The scaffolding for reading at this level are the mp3/audio versions of texts. In addition, students will have the opportunity to select the texts they will listen to and read, allowing them to select texts that fit their skill level and interest. By the end of the course, students should receive a 3 on the rubric, but not all of their entries must by a 3 in order to achieve mastery: the goal is for them to be learning how to write analytic entries. This will take time for many of the students. Beginning the course with 1s or 2s is legitimateending it with less than 3s is not.
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Memoir Teachers Guide

3. Free-Writing and Keeping a Writers Notebook: This course provides intense focus on each stage of the writing process: brainstorming, organizing, structuring, drafting, revising, and publishing. In addition to keeping a Readers Notebook, students must keep a Writers Notebook. The notebook also has 3 purposes: A chart (essentially an evolving table of contents) where students keep track of each of their writing activities. 8 Free-Writing entries about their lives, using the Writers Notebook Ideas document as a source of ideas for writing. 10 Reflections on the Mentor Texts (at the end of each Mentor Text, there are almost always 2 different Writing activities: one for the Readers Notebook and one for the Writers Notebook). Assessment of the Writers Notebook should follow the same format as for the Readers Notebook (see above). The Common Core Standards to be assessed in the Writers Notebook:
9-10.W.3c 9-10.W.4. 9-10.W.10 Use a variety of techniques to sequence events so that they build on one another to create a coherent whole. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

4. Working with Mentor Texts: This course provides an abundance of Memoirs for students to explore, both in their own independent reading and through the more structured Mentor Text activities. Each module has excerpts from 25 great Memoirs. We consider these Mentor Texts because they were specifically selected on the merits of they can teach students that will help them understand the genre, gain ideas for their own memoir, AND gain a significant amount of cultural capital, as they learn about people from all walks of life, and moments in history. Each mentor text has a small deck of ppt slides, as well as an mp3s. (We are working on getting the hard copy of the texts sent to the school as well.) Each module, students must listen and respond to 15 of the available Mentor Texts (an average of 3 each week, but its fine for them to listen to 10 one week and none the following week). The Mentor texts can be worked with in 2 different ways: first, students can access the mp3s and accompanying ppt decks when they want. Second, as students undertake Small Scale Performances, they will be referred to the Mentor Text examples that will help them with the performances.

Memoir Teachers Guide

 Students will reflect on and respond to the Mentor Texts in their Readers and Writers Notebooks (see above). Mentor Texts Module 1
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Ann Jacobs A Summer Life, by Gary Soto I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou West With The Night, by Beryl Markham Finding Fish, by Antwone Fisher Looking Back, by Lois Lowry Angelas Ashes, by Frank McCourt The Color of Water, by James McBride Naked, by David Sedaris How to Be Black, by Baratunde Thurston Dust Tracks on the Road, by Zora Neale Huston Bad Boy, by Walter Dean Myers All-Ball, by Mary Pope Osborne The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller Everything Will Be OK, by James Howe In My Own Words: Growing Up Inside the Sanctuary of my Imagination, by Nicholasa Mohr My Lord, What a Morning, by Marian Anderson Bone Black, by bell hooks The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong King A History of Psychology, by Margaret Floy Washburne Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood, by Judith Ortiz Cofer Reverand Abbot and those Bloodshot Eyes, by Walter Dean Myers Hole in My Life, by Jack Gantos Having Our Say, by Sarah and Elizabeth Delaney The Liars Club, by Mary Karr

Module 2
Pegasus for a Summer, by Michael Rosen Hole in My Life, by Jack Gantos Food From the Outside, by Rita Williams-Garcia Homesick: My Own Story, by Jean Fritz Scouts Honor, by Avi The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston Naked, by David Sedaris My Invented Country, by Isabel Allende The Black Notebooks, by Toi Derricotte Bone Black, by bell hooks The Snapping Turtle, by Joseph Bruchac Lost Childhood, by Annelex Layson Why I Never Ran Away From Home, by Katherine Paterson The Great Rat Hunt, by Lawrence Yep No Disrespect, by Sister Souljah Learning to Swim, by Kyoko Mori To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, by Lorraine Hansberry The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie The Language of Baklava, by Diana Abu-Jaber Night, by Elie Wiesel Lanterns, by Marian Wright Edelman My Bloody Life, by Reymundo Sanchez All Creatures Great and Small, by James Herriot My Life in France, by Julia Child Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris

Module 3
Too Fat to Fish, by Artie Lange The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard Unafraid of the Dark, by Rosemary Bray Rocket Boys, by Homer Hickam Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun, by Geoffrey Canada Sleepwalk With Me, by Mike Birbiglia The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X Waiting for Midnight, Karen Hesse Bus Problems, by Howard Norman How I Lost My Station in Life, by E.L. Konigsburg Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama The Long Closet, by Jane Yolen Taking a Dare, by Nicholasa Mohr Interview With a Shrimp, by Paul Fleishman Brain Surgeon, by Keith Black In The Blink of an Eye, by Norma Fox Mazer Zami: A New Spelling of my Name, by Audre Lorde Flying, by Reeve Lindbergh Calling the Doves, by Juan Felipe Herrera How to Be Black, by Baratunde Thurston A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson American Chica, by Marie Arana A Writers Life, by Annie Dillard

Memoir Teachers Guide

5. Teacher/Student Conferences: You will find that conferences with individual students are an essential part of this course. We are strongly recommending that you undertake 2 conferences with each student each week (if at all possible): One that focuses on what the students are reading, what they think about the texts, their wonderings, and their interestsas well as their Readers Notebook: what are they writing about? Does it really reflect their thinking? How can their thinking be pushed to a higher/deeper level? The second focuses on what students are writing, both in their Writers Notebook and for their Small Scale Performances: what are they working on in their writing? What techniques would be helpful for them to learn? What are they doing well and what are their gaps? What is the next step in their development as a writer? 6. Small Scale Performances: Each module, students will be provided with a lengthy list of Small Scale Performances (there are 26 in the first module, 10 of which students are required to complete. In addition to the 10 required performances, students must select 8 additional performances to undertake). As the teacher you can decide if you want students to undertake these together, creating some nice opportunities for sharing and collaboration, or if you want to give students choice about when to complete them (or a combination: you can facilitate the work, and students who want to can participate with you). As you look at the list of performances, you will see a wide range of options, including a number of art performances, poetry writing, and more straightforward personal writing. There should be enough options for students to find performances that appeal to them and that add variety to their learning experiences. Examples of Small Scale Performances from Module 1 (
# 1 2 3 4 5 6 Small Scale Performance (* s are required) *Photo-Writing: Use a photo as the basis for a description of an event in your life. *Object-Writing: Use an important object as the basis for a description of an important event, feeling, or experience in your life. Family Interview: Interview a family member about yourself. Memory Drawing: Draw or paint an image of one of your memories. * I remember Writing: Create a piece of writing using the repeated phrase I remember. *Revising an Entry from the Writers Notebook: Choose one of the entries youve written and revise it attending to purpose, elaboration/elimination, organization and clarification, grammar and punctuation. I carry Writing: Create a piece of writing using the repeated phrase I carry. Common Core Standards 8.W.3, 8.W.3.d, 9- 10.W.3.b 8.W.3, 8.W.3.d, 9- 10.W.3.b 6.SL.1c n/a 8.W.3, 8.W.3.d, 9- 10.W.3.b 9-10.W. 4, 9- 10.W.5, 9-10.W.10, 8.L.1, 8.L.2.a 8.W.3, 8.W.3.d, 9- 10.W.3.b

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 7. College Prep Performances: There are several college preparatory performances in this course, all of which are required. The criteria for identifying a performance as college prep (rather than small scale), is that it requires students to undertake tasks that might or will be found in college. The courses final project is a memoir, and students will work on it for quite some time, making refinements and revisions using the writing process. In addition to this, students will undertake a few other assignments that require revision and a high quality finished product.
#
1

College Preparatory/Final Performances

*Important Person Description: Write a description of a person who is important to you. *Audio-recording of personal story: Create an audio recording of yourself telling a favorite personal story, modeled after the stories you will hear on the radio shows The Moth and StoryCorps. You have the choice to submit this story to the radio show for possible inclusion.

Common Core Standards

8.W.3, 8.W.3.d, 8.W.3.e, 9- 10.L.1, 9-10.L.2, 9-10.W.3.b, 9-10.W.5, 9-10.W.10 9-10.SL.6

8. Online Grammar Booster: There is one additional element that could prove helpful in this course: an on-line grammar module. Many of our students struggle with grammar and punctuation. This course is potentially a great opportunity for students to take an online booster when they need a break from reading and writing. There are a number of boosters available, some free, some not. What will a typical day or week look like? As the teacher of this course, much of the structuring of the course will depend on your style and pedagogical approach. Because the course requires so much reading and writing, we recommend a blend of whole class and independently paced work, as it will allow students to experience variation from day to day. For example, in Week 1, the whole class might participate in the opening activities that introduce students to the genre and the details of the course. These activities might take a couple of days, or they might be spread across several days, mixing in the Set up of the Readers and Writers Notebooks, selection of an Independent Reading Book, and learning to Free-Write. In the ensuing weeks, Mondays might be a day when the class might begin working on one of the Required Small Scale Performances--all of the performances begin with a Lesson Launch that includes modeling, they then move into an Investigation period, and close with Synthesis activities that often require writing in the Readers and Writers Notebooks. Perhaps Thursday will be the day that you begin working with students on a 2nd required Small Scale Performance.
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 On Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, students would have the opportunity to read their Memoir, listen to required mentor texts, undertake an additional 2 Small Scale Performances, and write in their journals. On these days, you can conference with students, facilitate mini-lessons on topics the students are struggling with (maybe five students dont know how to use quotation marks when they write dialogue, or 7 students arent sure what symbolism is). As you confer with students you will learn where the gaps in their knowledge are and can plan mini-lessons to address these specific gapsstudents can meet you at a table in the room, while the rest of the students keep working on their assignments. Then, disband these students and continue moving around the room, working with all of the students and learning what you need to prepare next. Mentor Texts: What students will read and listen to Module 1
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Ann Jacobs A Summer Life, by Gary Soto I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou West With The Night, by Beryl Markham Finding Fish, by Antwone Fisher Looking Back, by Lois Lowry Angelas Ashes, by Frank McCourt The Color of Water, by James McBride Naked, by David Sedaris How to Be Black, by Baratunde Thurston Dust Tracks on the Road, by Zora Neale Huston Bad Boy, by Walter Dean Myers All-Ball, by Mary Pope Osborne The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller Everything Will Be OK, by James Howe In My Own Words: Growing Up Inside the Sanctuary of my Imagination, by Nicholasa Mohr My Lord, What a Morning, by Marian Anderson Bone Black, by bell hooks The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong King A History of Psychology, by Margaret Floy Washburne Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood, by Judith Ortiz Cofer Reverand Abbot and those Bloodshot Eyes, by Walter Dean Myers Hole in My Life, by Jack Gantos Having Our Say, by Sarah and Elizabeth Delaney The Liars Club, by Mary Karr

Module 2
Pegasus for a Summer, by Michael Rosen Hole in My Life, by Jack Gantos Food From the Outside, by Rita Williams-Garcia Homesick: My Own Story, by Jean Fritz Scouts Honor, by Avi The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston Naked, by David Sedaris My Invented Country, by Isabel Allende The Black Notebooks, by Toi Derricotte Bone Black, by bell hooks The Snapping Turtle, by Joseph Bruchac Lost Childhood, by Annelex Layson Why I Never Ran Away From Home, by Katherine Paterson The Great Rat Hunt, by Lawrence Yep No Disrespect, by Sister Souljah Learning to Swim, by Kyoko Mori To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, by Lorraine Hansberry The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie The Language of Baklava, by Diana Abu-Jaber Night, by Elie Wiesel Lanterns, by Marian Wright Edelman My Bloody Life, by Reymundo Sanchez All Creatures Great and Small, by James Herriot My Life in France, by Julia Child Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris

Module 3
Too Fat to Fish, by Artie Lange The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls The Long Closet, by Jane Yolen Taking a Dare, by Nicholasa Mohr

Memoir Teachers Guide

A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard Unafraid of the Dark, by Rosemary Bray Rocket Boys, by Homer Hickam Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun, by Geoffrey Canada Sleepwalk With Me, by Mike Birbiglia The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X Waiting for Midnight, Karen Hesse Bus Problems, by Howard Norman How I Lost My Station in Life, by E.L. Konigsburg Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama

Interview With a Shrimp, by Paul Fleishman Brain Surgeon, by Keith Black In The Blink of an Eye, by Norma Fox Mazer Zami: A New Spelling of my Name, by Audre Lorde Flying, by Reeve Lindbergh Calling the Doves, by Juan Felipe Herrera How to Be Black, by Baratunde Thurston A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson American Chica, by Marie Arana A Writers Life, by Annie Dillard

Texts to support your teaching of this course The course is modeled closely after the book Writing a Life: Teaching Memoir to Sharpen Insight, Shape MeaningAnd Triumph Over Tests, by Katherine Bomer. We strongly recommend that you read this book in preparation for teaching the course, since it will help you to understand the logic behind the teaching approach, and to become more confident in adapting the course to fit the unique needs of your students. In order to be most prepared to teach this course, we recommend that you explore some or all of the following resources. These resources will help you to understand the philosophy behind Writers Workshop, as well as to acquire practical strategies for implementing Writers Workshop effectively in your classroom. Writing a Life: Teaching Memoir to Sharpen Insight, Shape MeaningAnd Triumph Over Tests, by Katherine Bomer Writing Workshop: The Essential Guide, by Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi Teaching Writing to Adolescents, by Kelly Gallagher Assessing Writing, and Hows it Going?, by Carl Anderson Conferring, by Patrick Allen Every Child a Reader & Writer - The Noyce Foundation http://www.noycefdn.org/ecrwresources.php

Memoir Teachers Guide

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