MultiGenre Memoir DAY 6 of Implementation

11-3-08

The day before the election and students are excited. Some have decided to do an additional piece on this time in their lives because they feel it is so historic. YAY! The willingness and desire to do extra is exactly why I love this project. So, as students conference with me, I keep a chart of the date, what draft we worked on, and what we talked about. I gave a short mini-lesson/review to one girl today about sentence fragments. I also gave her a handout on sf rules and a quick practice sheet to do and bring back to me. I love writer's workshop because it allows me to do embedded grammar instruction individual to each student.

My mini-lessons come from these conferences, too, and from my observations. Today's mini-lesson was on the author's notes (also called end notes or reflections). I shared a completed author's note from a student's paper, "I decided to write about my memory as a diary because it shows more feelings and emotions. It's just like you write it to keep it to yourself. So I included details I probably wouldn't have if I had wrote a letter to a friend. A diary is like a friend that you tell a secret to and it won't tell no one unless someone reads it. I don't think there's another way I could have written about my love for Strawberry Shortcake. You could explain more, or you can tell more of your point-of-view." Students got in pairs and began thinking-through their rationales for their genre choices. I also asked them to talk about what things their genres didn't let them show about a specific topic.

Finally, I took a few minutes to share some new pieces from my memoir (I had to add to it to meet the requirements for their projects). I read my letter to an advice columnist and the response, and discussed how this genre let me talk about the way people treated me when I found out my daughter had cystic fibrosis. In the response, I was able to write about the ways that I handled the situations, under the guise of "advise." What I like about this genre is that the narrative is still there, but I felt that I could distance myself a bit emotionally.

Comments

Unlocking Creative Brilliance with Digital Magnetic Poetry: Teach Syntax, Diction, and Tone

Originally published 1/14/2009. Updated 11/4/2023 The possibilities are infinite--ish when you use online magnets to get creative. No refrigerator necessary. Free online kits here . Poetry, with its mesmerizing ability to encapsulate emotions, stories, and ideas within the boundaries of words, is a true art form. But there's a particular type of poetry that holds a special place in my heart—the kind that challenges our traditional understanding of language and syntax. I'm talking about magnetic poetry, the quirky, wordplay-filled realm where creativity knows no bounds. I love this type of poetry! It really makes me think in a different syntax, playing with a strange juxtaposition of words. Often, I use this format when I am bored or if I have NO IDEA what I want to write about! The beauty of magnetic poetry lies in its simplicity and boundless potential for creativity. It's an art form where words become movable puzzle pieces, waiting to be rearranged into poetic masterpi...

A Book Review of Sark's (2008) Juicy Pens Thirsty Paper: Gifting the World with Your Words and Stories and Creating the Time and Energy to Actually Do It

A Book Review of Juicy Pens Thirsty Paper: Gifting the World with Your Words and Stories and Creating the Time and Energy to Actually Do It by Sark. Three Rivers press, 2008. 185 pages. $18.95. When I first discovered Sark, I was at once inspired, envious, and critical. I remember sitting on my best friend’s bed, covered in its usual tangle of sarongs and tapestries rather than real bed clothes, growing more incredulous as I flipped each page of Succulent Wild Woman (1997). What kind of new-age hippie crap was this? Someone had gotten paid to write this ? These doodles and handwritten pages were worthy of my ultimate goal, that pinnacle of success, PUBLICATION? But each spunky drawing and passage motivated me to continue my own writing. Sark wrote the way I wrote, turning letters to friends into artwork, and if she could get paid for it then I could. ...

What is Working Memory?

How Does The Brain Work? If I could answer that question, I could probably be cooling my heels on a nice island somewhere, mimosa in hand, Instead, I am left to read research and theories about how the brain (and reading) operates. One can dream, though..... For years, researchers delineated memory into two types: short term and long term. More recently, after the advent of LaBerge and Samuels Automaticity Theory (1974) and Perfetti's Verbal Efficiency Theory (1988), this construct was re-imagined as working memory --which adds the dimension of processing to the function of storage ( Daneman & Carpenter , 1980). As they explain, "Working memory is assumed to have processing as well as storage functions; it serves as the site for executing processes and for storing the products of these processes" (p. 450). Working memory is active rather than passive. Tanabe , Azumi , Osaka, & Naoyuki (2009) explain that workin...

Out of Her Mind -- Musings on Education and Life

Search This Blog