Today students turned in their final memoirs! We celebrated with rounds of applause and cheers for this huge undertaking, a nearly six-week project culminating in a long piece of writing (five pages and up).
1. Paper shuffling. Students gathered together all of their rough drafts, including anything written on notebook paper , Writer’s Workshop pieces they got feedback on from me, and the complete rough draft from earlier this week. The papers should be stacked in this order:
- Top: Final Printed Memoir
- Memoir Reflection (see #2)
- Complete Rough Draft
- Writer’s Workshop #2
- Writer’s Workshop #1
- Any first drafts: name piece, place piece, syntax piece, inciting incident, characterization, similes/metaphors, new beginnings and endings (even if these didn’t make it into your final draft, still include them)
2. Memoir Reflection. Students spent about 15-20 minutes answering the following questions to digest their writing experience:
1. What parts of your memoir are the best?
2. What parts are you still not confident about?
3. What literary techniques helped your writing most? (imagery, diction, symbolism, foreshadowing, simile, metaphor, flashback, internal monologue, dial0gue, show don’t tell, metacognition)
4. Which literary techniques are you still not sure how to use well?
5. What were the most difficult parts of the process (drafting, coming up with ideas, adding details, getting feedback, rewriting, deleting fluff)?
6. How helpful was your Writer’s Group (or Partner)? What more did you need from them?
7. What have you learned about writing?
8. What grade would you give yourself on this project and why?
9. If we could go back in time, what could we have done differently in class to make you more successful on this project? More time in the lab? More work on symbolism? More time in writing groups?
3. Signing up for publication. Students signed up to be published in our collection of memoirs. All students were given the option of publishing under a pen name if they would like to remain anonymous.
HW: None! We will begin reading To Kill a Mockingbird next week.
Come to DSA Publishing meetings. All are welcome. Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:00-5:00. Be a part of making a book!
ALEXA GARVOILLE 