In the prologue to his 1997 memoir, All Over But the Shoutin’, journalist Rick Bragg recounts a story of a visit he made to a mother in New Orleans whose young son had been killed by a stray bullet as he stood on their front steps one morning with his bookbag in hand. “She told me how the Dr. Seuss and Winnie the Pooh just fell out on the stoop, how the boy looked up at her after the bullet hit, wide-eyed, wondering. And as she talked, her two surviving children rode tight circles around the couch on their bicycles, because she was afraid to let them play outside in the killing ground of the project courtyard. As I left, shaking her hand, she thanked me…I had to ask why. Why thank me for scribbling down her hopeless story for the benefit of people who live so far and safely away…? She answered by pulling out of a scrapbook of her baby’s death, cut from the local newspaper. ‘People remembers it,’ she said. ‘People forgets if it ain’t wrote down.’”
I have used Rick Bragg’s words to introduce memoirs that I booktalk each year for students in our ninth grade English classes because they so accurately pinpoint what it is about writing—and about memoir writing in particular—that is so powerful and important. Simply put, people do remember if ideas are written down, and in remembering, they think about and learn vicariously from others’ experiences. Our own stories create an important record of our lives that preserve our memories and insights and serve as permanent record of who we were, what we did, and why it mattered.
For aspiring writers, memoirs provide some of the best examples we have of how to transform a life into a lesson, of how to make words reach out and grab readers and pull them into a story. Like Rick Bragg’s book, well-written memoirs focus on specific events and details from the writers’ lives, they are more than a recitation of facts about the author (they tend to “show” rather than “tell”), they are personalized and often intimate, and they show insight into experiences and how they shape lives. All of these are skills we hope to teach young writers: how to zero in on particular events and make them come alive, how to use specific language to create sensory images, and how to translate a recollection of events into an powerful message that others can be entertained by, learn from, and appreciate. Memoirs, as opposed to biographies and many autobiographies, are frequently created by writers who are focusing as much on the telling of a story as the story itself. They are choosing words carefully, concentrating on how the events unfold suspensefully, and looking to develop a theme that reveals knowledge about life that others can learn from.
Memoirs lend themselves equally well to the teaching of reading; in the manner of many novels, they reveal secrets and details in an intriguing, compelling way; they develop characters that readers grow to love and hate; they wrestle with weighty personal issues and often find humor in the midst of painful experiences. Often they deal with periods of the writers’ lives that interest high school students; in The Liars’ Club, writer Mary Karr focuses on her coming-of-age in an alcoholic home, in Autobiography of a Face Lucy Grealy writes about her childhood cancer; and in The Last Time I Wore a Dress and Girl, Interrupted, Daphne Scholinski and Susanna Kaysen each deal with time they spent in mental institutions as teens. Reading a memoir feels something like reading a diary or a series of personal letters: they are revelatory, compelling and often unforgettable. They make the universal experiences—love, loss, illness, triumph, fear—personal and unique. Each one shows us how life can be lived and learned from, and how even the most horrific experiences can be made bearable and even serve as the source of strength.
Memoirs lend themselves well to the teaching of reading and writing, and for the past two years, I have worked with Jennifer Bradbury, an English teacher at my school, to use them for that purpose. Jennifer and I became friends and collaborators when she filled my spot in the English department and we learned that we shared an interest in the same types of literature. Both of us were fans of currently popular memoirs such as Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, and we shared a goal of helping students develop their writing skills by using quality literature as a model, so we collaborated to create a unit that would teach students about the power of personal narrative.
Ideally, collaboration involves meeting together for regularly scheduled blocks of time that doesn’t involve leaving sub plans or abandoning the library. Realistically, it means squeezing in 15-20 minutes when it can be found, exchanging emails and Post-it notes, and refining goals and procedures as work is accomplished with students in the library and the classroom. It’s not a perfect system, but it can succeed as long as the individuals are committed and flexible—willing to improvise and amend their plan—and concerned more with the ends—student satisfaction and achievement—than with the means.
Our collaboration followed these steps:
1. We met to set goals for the unit, which were:
· Each student would read one memoir;
· Each student would maintain a reading journal, reflecting on what the writer experienced and thought as well as responding to those ideas;
· Students would be exposed to and come to recognize the characteristics of memoirs and identify examples of quality writing such as voice, word choice, insight, and details.
· Students would write a short memoir of their own, focusing on a particular event in their life and demonstrating insight into how it taught them a lesson or a truth about life.
2. We surveyed student about their interests and hobbies, and then worked together to select and purchase over 100 memoirs for the library which:
· Covered a wide range of interests (sports, music, history, crime, illness, adventure, occupations, etc.)
· Were written in a variety of styles (diary format, humor, etc).
· Demonstrated a balance of male and female writers and
· Reflected a range of ethnic and religious backgrounds.
3. We then established our roles:
· Jennifer designed the reading journal and writing assignments, responded to students’ journal entries, and organized writing lessons and revision sessions.
· I prepared a multimedia booktalk presentation, researched and read many high–quality, high-interest memoirs; and matched students with books that met their interests and reading levels.
After a few brief meetings, Jennifer and I began the memoir unit in the library. I introduced the concept by playing aloud the portion of Rick Bragg’s book quoted above; because he reads his own work, it is especially powerful and moving. Using this as a lead-in, I talked briefly about what a memoir is, how it differs from autobiography, and then presented a number of high-interest books. As I talked briefly about each book, I passed it around, showed the covers using PowerPoint slides, and provided each student with a check-off list of the titles which included space for brief notes and a place where students could fill in their names so that they could put books on. They could also use the check-off list as a record of titles they found interesting and wanted to consider for future reading. I presented about 10 books, and included several excerpts from audiobooks; Bill Bryson’s work is funny and his voice is distinctive (I played portions of A Walk in the Woods and I’m a Stranger Here Myself); I also played part of Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies. I created a display with the memoirs propped up, identified by bookmarks and a sign, and helped students individually when they came in to choose books.
After students selected books, Jennifer handled their reading response journals, requiring each student to write 10 full-page entries. She provided examples to accompany each of the following guidelines:
· One paragraph briefly summarizing the section that was read.
· One paragraph analyzing in detail the author’s skill in a specific area of writing.
· One paragraph responding and reacting to the section that was read, including any personal memories that were triggered by what was read.
Jennifer also handled the writing assignments, although we met to discuss ways to encourage students to narrow their topics and add details, dialogue, and anecdotes to bring their stories to life. In the future, we plan to add to our unit by bringing students to the library more frequently, where the two of us can meet with small groups in a writing workshop. We also plan to read aloud or listen to more quality memoirs as a group. We hope to share more writers with them, in particular, those who take risks with their stories, people like humorist David Sedaris, whose personal narratives in Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day demonstrate how situations can be added to and amended to make a point or create humor; and journalist Dave Barry, whose newspaper columns transform his personal experiences into hilarity through the use of exaggeration.
Although we are both English teachers and writers, collaborating does not require such similar backgrounds; any two professionals with an interest in a topic and a commitment to helping students learn can work together to achieve the success we achieved with the memoir unit. Although neither Jennifer nor I anticipate that our students will earn Pulitzers or get a spot on NPR before they graduate high school, we feel satisfied that our objectives were met and that students gained from the attention the two of us were able to provide, and we look forward to expanding our team work in the future to a broader range of reading/writing assignments.
Bragg, Rick. All Over But the Shoutin’. New York: Random House, Inc. 1997.
Bryson, Bill. I’m a Stranger Here Myself. New York: Broadway Books. 1999.
Bryson, Bill. A Walk in the Woods. New York: Broadway Books. 1998.
Grealy, Lucy. Autobiography of a Face. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1994.
Karr, Mary. The Liar’s Club. New York: Viking. 1995.
Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. New York: Turtle Bay Books. 1993.
Lamott, Anne. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. New York: Pantheon
Books, 1999.
Scholinski, Daphne. The Last Time I Wore a Dress. New York: Riverhead Books. 1997.
Sedaris, David. Me Talk Pretty One Day. Boston: Little and Brown, 2000.
Sedaris, David. Naked. Boston: Little and Brown, 1997.
Popular Memoirs in the
Burlington-Edison High School Library.
Bolnick, Tina. Living at the Edge of the World. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 2000.
Gottlieb, Lori. Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self. New York: Simon & Schuster.
2000.
Hawk, Tony. Hawk: Occupation Skateboarder. Regan Books. 2000.
Hickam, Homer. Rocket Boys. New York: Delacorte Press. 2000.
Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. New York: Turtle Bay Books. 1993.
Mah, Adeline Yen. Chinese Cinderella. New York: Delacorte. 1999.
Marcinko, Richard. Rogue Warrior. New York: Pocket Books. 1992.
McCall, Nathan. Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America.
New York: Vintage Books. 1995.
McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes. New York: Scribner. 1996.
Morris, Jim. The Oldest Rookie. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 2001.
Opdyke, Irene. In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer. New York:
Knopf. 1999.
Paulsen, Gary. The Beet Fields. New York: Bantam Doubleday. 2000.
Paulsen, Gary. Guts. New York: Delacorte. 2001.
Pelzer, David. A Child Called It. Deerfield: Health Communications. 1995.
Rushin, Steve. Road Swing.
Salzman, Mark. Lost in Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia. New York:
Random House. 1995.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Bantam Books. 1982.
Wolff, Tobias. This Boy’s Life. New York: Perennial Library. 1990.
Cathy Belben, Librarian
Burlington-Edison High School
301 N. Burlington Blvd.
Burlington, WA 98233
(360) 757-4074 ext. 3128