Finding Memorable Moments…
The author states that they use mentor texts and students mentor each other about their pieces which is a great way to help students develop their voice. People learn a lot by imitating and reading other student’s work and published work. Through this practice students can improve their own writing.
Having students share their story out loud before writing helps them to get ideas together and partners can ask clarifying questions or suggest more detail in places. This makes actually writing it down easier because you have a clear idea of where the story is going. Also, listening to other people’s story can remind people of their own memories.
The “exploding a moment” technique is a great way to help student add more detail to their work. I also like the idea of acting out the scene in order to remember more detail.
A Study of Memoir:
Before beginning to teach writing in a genre it is important to emerge the student in books of that genre. Having students search for their own books will help them to think about the genre in a more complete way. The act of having students sift through books and deciding what books fit their definition and why also helps them to develop a deeper understanding of the genre. With each different type of memoir they discovered, they wrote in that form. When students have begun to explore the topic on their own and developed a definition it is helpful to combine the definition into a class definition. This helps students have a deeper understanding than if they were just told what it is and given examples. The article also mentions the power of using mentor texts to help students learn to write their own memoir.
I agree, mentoring is an awesome tool to use in the class! It’s awesome to allow students to help one another and collaborate to create successful opportunities inside the classroom!
I agree that this would really help students develop a strong sense of details. I think the students would love doing something different yet be able to benefit in ways that can be applied across the genres.