"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: [email protected] > > 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> > _________________________________________________________________ > Your smile counts. The more smiles you share, the more we > donate. Join in. > www.windowslive.com/smile?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_oprsmilewlhmtagline > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. > > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
