Memoirs
In class, we learned about memoirs, a type of literary nonfiction. A memoir is a reflective piece about your own life or someone else’s life. It is based on personal memories of a special person or pet. Though it is based on facts, memoirs are usually literary and poignant, bringing the memories or the positive attributes of the subject alive for the reader. It should have a natural prose style, as if you are sharing stories about a loved one or someone that you admire(d).
This piece will be written for the middle to intermediate grades (3rd-6th grade; you choose the specific level, please). For that reason, it should be multi-paragraph and display more complex sentence structure and word choices. It does not have to be a finished, polished product yet, but it needs to be something that you would be willing to show students as an exemplar to get them started on their own memoirs.
Ther are three memoirs as exemplars. One called My Ofrenda was written for 3rd graders during a unit of study on Día de los Muertos. The memoir about Pumpkin was written after sharing the mentor text, The Tenth Good Thing About Barney by Judith Viorst. Maya was in 4th grade when she wrote her memoir about Booker, her black Lab. Students in previous sections of EDCI 4349 went other directions with memoirs and you can too. I shared two of their memoirs in class (M3b).
It must be multi-paragraph demonstrating that you intend to teach older elementary students that writers group their ideas together meaningfully in paragraphs.
