[MOSAIC] Memoir/Leslie

[mbrand125 at optonline.net]

"11"  and "Hair" by Sandra Cisneros, "My Grandmother's Table" by Cynthia Rylant, "Mama's Sewing" not sure of the author.
Myra Brand
Plainview, ny

----- Original Message -----
From: gina nunley 
Date: Thursday, November 22, 2007 3:25 pm
Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] Memoir/Leslie
To: mosaic at literacyworkshop.org

> 
> Leslie commented:
> > Do you think these texts really qualify as Personal essay, and 
> not > narrative? I realize that personal essay may have 
> narrative embedded within, but the > thrust of the essay is to 
> promote some thinking with anecdotes as support.> > Lesle> > > 
> Leslie, We had many disucssions about this. We discovered that 
> many of our sixth grades, or really most of them, have not 
> experienced enough life to find a story in their own lives with 
> enough significance to promotoe anecdotal thinking.
> 
> 
> So we focused more on the writing traits of narrowing your focus 
> (the most difficult skill at first) and choosing an 
> organization that fit your story (descriptive or sequential) as 
> well as developing significant images. So the titles we used 
> worked for us, because they did a good job of modeling the 
> traits we wanted kids to develop. We also felt that each of 
> them offered their own anecdote about life.
> 
> At the end of this I am just not sure I believe we can ask 
> the majority of sixth grades to write a true memoir or personal 
> experience narrative with a message. I tried to "bring" that to 
> some of their stories in conferences and it just ended up 
> sounding contrived. When kids were lucky enough to have a story 
> that left them with a new twist, a new meaning, a personal 
> message we helped them craft that in the conclusion, but mostly 
> we ended up having to be happy with a strong emotion at the end.
> 
> 
> I was very happy with their growth in the traits of focus, 
> organization, and development of ideas. However, out of 64 
> essays I would say less than a dozen actually identified an 
> event worthy of a persoanl essay/memoir.
> 
> I take your point that we should probably abandon the use of the 
> word memoir and just say we're writing a personal experience 
> narrative. 
> I would welcome any ideas or titles you have that have been 
> successful with this age group. If I could find a bank of true 
> memoir type essays for this age group it might help trigger more 
> ideas from their own lives. Thanks, Gina> 
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