Today we spent the majority of the day writing in our writer’s notebooks, exploring ideas and topics to write about for our own memoir projects.
1. Free read.
2. Writing. Students continued lesson on indirect characterization by writing a physical description that hints at how they feel about a person they love and how they feel about a person that challenges them.
3. Writing. Afterwards, students abandoned their school desks to find a comfortable and inspiring place to write. It can be difficult coming up with something to write for your own memoir. To help students find memoir writing topics, we asked everyone to draw a prompt from a box and begin writing whatever comes to mind. If the prompt didn’t inspire them they drew another prompt from the box. We wrote for 20 minutes and spent the last ten minutes of class reviewing what students wrote, what topics were easiest to write about, surprising memories that surfaced while writing, and topics they want to continue writing about. Some example prompts from the activity include:
“Tell me everything you know about ice cream.“
“Write about your mother’s jewelry.”
“We all come from someplace. Where you come from?”
“Over the years what Halloween costumes have you worn?”
4. When students finished, each answered the following three questions:
- The words really started flowing when I was writing about ___.
- A memory that surprised me was ____. I think I remembered it because ___.
- A topic or idea I would like to continue writing about is ____.
HW: Finish reading 3/4 of your memoir book for Tuesday. Complete Role Sheet #3 by Tuesday.
Honors: Complete blog #3 for Monday.
ALEXA GARVOILLE 