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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