Guidance

Today, Shonda Middleton, the 9th grade guidance counselor, came in to speak to students about graduation requirements, GPAs, career pathways, and college.

HW: Complete rough draft of memoir due tomorrow. Honors: 8 page minimum (approx.) Standard: 5 page minimum (approx.)

Honors: Complete final memoir due Monday, September 28.

Standard: Complete revised second draft due Monday, September 28.

Standard: Complete final memoir due Tuesday, September 29.

Final Memoir Checklist

X Final draft

• about five pages, minimum for Standard (transfer students: about three pages, minimum); about 8 pages, minimum for Honors (transfer students: about 6 pages minimum); no maximum limit
• remember: it’s better to turn in five concise, well-written pages of memoir than 12 rambling pages of memoir
• typed: double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman, Arial, or Palatino, one-inch margins, proper header
• if you can’t type it, handwrite in blue or black pen on every other line of loose-leaf paper
• includes title and any chapter divisions

X Memoir Draft Checklist from final Writing Workshop (Friday)

X Rough drafts

Most pieces in the final memoir will have gone through multiple drafts. Turn in each draft, including:

• drafts I commented on and turned back to you
• any handwritten or typed drafts not in your Writer’s Notebook
• complete first draft from the final Writing Workshop day
• complete second draft from Editing day

X Writer’s Notebook

Your notebook should include the following pieces/exercises that I will be looking for to grade. Please look through your notebook and check them off one by one on this list if you have them.

• Name Chart (8/27)
• Name Piece (8/27)
• Episode Piece (9/2)
• Writing Workshop To-Do Lists and evidence of editing (on two pieces at least) (9/4 and 9/18)
• Place Piece (9/10)
• Revised Beginning of one piece (9/11)
• Slice of Life / Routine Piece (9/17)
• Focus Piece / Weekend Piece (two pages) (9/21)
• One-page expansion (9/22)
• Revised Endings of two pieces (9/24)

Ideas about Titles

1. Give your reader a hint of what your piece is about. Make your reader curious or excited about reading your piece.
2. Brainstorm based on your summer reading book.
3. Watch out! Most memoirs do not use the author’s name in the title. That’s how biographies are titled. Please avoid using your name in the title of your memoir.
4. Avoid clichés: Come up with an original title that’s specific to your piece only. Don’t use a title that anyone else could use or that you’ve heard somewhere else.
5. Examples:

• Keyword Titles: Look through your piece. Pick a meaningful phrase or one that you use in an important moment in the piece. Make that your title. Then, as the reader reads that phrase in the piece, he will experience a moment of recognition, thus heightening the affect of your climax!

Ex: The Color of Water

• Metaphors: The Glass Castle, The Red Scarf
• Humorous titles: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian