Personal Memoir Instructional Sequence

Writing for Understanding Instruction
Teacher Plan

Teacher: Jennifer S. Barone Class : Fifth Grade Date 8/09 Writing genre: 1.9

Topic / Subject / Text

CENTRAL IDEAS

Content: Experiences in our lives shape us to what we become and who we are.

Reading: Read and reread a variety of personal narratives and analyze author’s craft (what makes an effective memoir).

Writing: To write effectively about an event in our lives, we include narrative elements: character, setting, conflict/problem, solution/resolution. We engage the reader by using sensory details, thought shots, snapshots, dialogue in order to create an exploded moment in time.


Focusing Question

Focus (answer to focusing question)

Tell about something significant that has happened to you in your life that you want to remember and share with others.

This event has been very important to me and I want to remember and share it.


Building Content Knowledge, Understanding of Writer’s Craft


· Frayer Model: Vocabulary words significant and effective. Build knowledge of what each word means.
· Student develop a working definition of a memoir through picture books, models of writing (teacher, author, other students)
· Read and reread First Day Jitters (Pretend you are the teacher, turn and talk to your partner about how she feels about school now)
· Investigate model memoirs (Marathon, Shelf Life Gary Paulsen use narrative elements graphic organizer to identify narrative elements in each memoir as a class.
· Look at ineffective memoir and decide how can you help the writer make the memoir effective, do as a whole group, post suggestions as public notes
· Public notes to find narrative elements in models using both text and graphics
· Read and reread First Day Jitters
· Read examples of snapshots, thought shots, dialogue from children’s literature

Structures
How will students know how to organize their ideas
and construct the piece of writing?


· Narrative elements graphic organizer
· Plot diagram
· “Me Circles” for generating ideas for memoirs
· Color coding leads, sensory details, thoughshots, and dialogue.



Writing / Revising
How will students draft / revise so that their final writing is clearly focused,
organized, and developed to show understanding of the central ideas?


• group write, fully or in
part
• write section at a time
• write full piece
independently
• revise /share full group
• revise /share partners
• proofreading in partners
• proofread w/tubaloos

Group personal memoir write imitating First Day Jitters
Reread First Day Jitters as a class.
Write a group memoir based on students’ own first day of school experiences.
Using OWL website, give students examples of leads
Students and teacher write lead for memoir together
Students and teacher write memoir making sure to include all of the narrative elememts (setting, main character, what the character cares about, conflict or problem, solution/resolution
Teacher models “Me Cirlces” to demonstrate where personal memoir ideas come from.
Students try on their own and then share with a partner. At this point students may add on based on their sharing
Teacher demonstrates her first draft: Marathon piece (snapshot)
Students write their first draft making sure to skip lines. Teacher reminds students of previous models that she has demonstrated from real authors
Share with partner. Students may add on or revise based on sharing.
Teacher shares her second draft which includes thoughtshots that she has put in to her snapshot. Teacher reminds students of previous models that she has demonstrated from real authors
Students write their thoughtshots into to their own pieces and then share with a partner. Students may add on or revise after sharing.
Teacher shares her third draft which includes dialogue. Teacher reminds students of models that she has demonstrated from real authors.
Teacher reminds students of lead she has shared from OWL website. Teacher demonstrates a lead to use for her own piece.
Students turn and talk with a partner and discuss possible leads for their memoirs. (This may be done a the beginning of the sequence. However, sometimes find it difficult to write a lead to a story that is not written yet).
Using narrative elements graphic organizer, teacher demonstrates with her piece that all of the elements are included.
Students share completed pieces with a partner using narrative elements graphic organizer to make sure all of the elements are included in their pieces.
Teacher paints her own piece to show lead (red) snapshots (green), thoughtshots (blue) and dialogue (orange). Students and teacher together can decide which colors to use.
Students type final copies and draw a picture to go along with narrative.
Share as a class or share with younger children.


Lesson Sequence
What steps will I follow so that students are able to effectively
show their understanding in writing?

· Discuss personal memoir with students.
· Read First Day Jitters and discuss why the author may have written the memoir.
· Give students focusing question.
· Discuss the significant and effective. Use Frayer model to help students build an understanding of these two words and how they may apply to describing an effective personal memoir.
· Read selected memoirs from Shelf Life by Gary Paulsen. Discuss why each of the memoirs is significant and effective as a whole group. Use public notes to record discussion.
· As a whole group use narrative elements graphic organizer to identify narrative elements in each of the memoirs.
· As a group look at an ineffective memoir and discuss how to help writer to make memoir effective. Use public notes to record discussion.
· Reread First Day Jitters. Using public notes from Shelf Life, discuss why First Day Jitters is an effective personal memoir.
· As a group brainstorm some of the “jitters” the students have has on the first day of school. Record as public notes.
· Group write: Using OWL website’s models of leads, students and teacher write a lead for group memoir.
· Students and teacher write group memoir together based on the list of “jitters” generated.
· Students and teacher check for narrative elements.
· Teacher models “Me Circles” with class to show where to get ideas for personal memoirs.
· Students try on their own and share with partners adding on after discussion.
· Groups share. Students pick one idea to share with class.
· Teacher demonstrates picking an idea and modeling writing a snapshot of that moment in time. Teacher shows models from real authors along with magic camera. Teachers show her first draft of Marathon Day. Group discussion of what makes it an effective snapshot: use of sensory details.
· Students write a snapshot of their personal memoir making sure to skip lines for adding thoughtshots and dialogue later. Share with a partner and revise after sharing. Whole group share of three or four snapshots.
· Teacher show examples of thoughtshots from authors.
· Teacher demonstrates adding thoughshots in her Marathon piece. Group discussion of how thoughtshots enhance piece and get to understanding what the writer is thinking about and wants the reader to know.
· Students insert thoughshots into their own pieces. Students share with partner and revise. Group share of three of four second drafts.
· Teacher show examples of using dialogue from authors.
· Teacher demonstrates adding dialogue into her own Marathon piece. Group discussion of how dialogue enhances piece.
· Students insert dialogue into their own pieces. Students share with partners and revise. Group share of three or four third drafts.
· Teacher reviews different styles of leads from OWL website with students. Teacher shows lead she used in her own piece.
OWL website link to leads
http://www.kimskorner4teachertalk.com/writing/sixtrait/organization/leads.html
· Students discuss possible leads for pieces. Students write lead and share with partners. (This may be done at the end of the sequence or at the beginning).
· Students identify narrative elements, sensory details, thoughshots, and dialogue in pieces. Revise if necessary.
· Students write final pieces and illustrate.
· Share as a group or with another audience such as younger students, parents, etc.



Assessment: How are students doing? What are my next steps as a teacher?

· As students are following the lesson sequence and writing, teacher is circulating reading, questioning and conferring with students based on specific skill being demonstrated.
· Students who are not getting it are given extra help from teacher or peers as needed.
· Teacher analyzes along the way whether or not she needs to review a specific skill.


Next Steps: Gradual Release of Responsibility

· Memory Museum: each month students decide what was an important event that was important to them and why.
· Students continue writing in Writer’s Notebook about significant events in their lives.
· Students pick a significant event from notebook and turn it into a personal memoir for end of year “Class Anthology”.

“Michael’s Eye”
Ineffective Memoir

Hi. I am going to tell you a story about my brother and how he got hurt during a hockey game. So sit back relax and try not to get grossed out by the blood! Yuck. I woke up early knowing that we would be playing hockey that day. I had cereal for breakfast. It tasted good. After breakfast I walked over to the small pond behind the Westgate Apartments. My brother was already there with our friends Gordon, Ernie, Betty, Janet, and Scott.

The ice was fast and we began to play hockey. All of a sudden Gordon had an opportunity for the shot of the game. Ernie had moved away from the goal. Just as Gordon raised his stick in the air, everything seemed to go in slow motion. The stick hit Michael right in the eye. Wow! Blood was gushing all over his hockey shirt. That’s the gross part I was talking about!

I took Michael home after taking off his skates. My mother quickly put him in the car and drove to Mass General Hospital. My father came home a little while later. I told him what happened to Michael. Later Michael and my mother came home. Luckily Michael only had four stitches. The stick missed his eye by a fraction of an inch. I knew that we would play many more hockey games. The end. I hope you liked my story. There’s more where that came from!

Snapshots
Ma kissed them both, and tucked the covers in around them. They lay there awhile, looking at Ma’s smooth, parted hair and her hands busy with sewing in the lamp light. Her needle made little clicking sounds against her thimble and then the thread went softly, swish through the pretty calico that Pa had traded furs for.
Laura Ingalls Wilder: Little House in the Big Woods


The baker, who was an older man with a thick neck, listened without saying anything when she told him the child would be eight years next Monday. The baker wore a white apron that looked like a smock. Straps cut under his arms, went around back and then to the front again where they were secured under his heavy waist. He wiped his hands on his apron as he listened to her. He kept his eyes down on the photographs and let her talk. He let her take her time. He’d just come to work and he’d be there all night, baking, and he was in no real hurry.
Raymond Carver: A Good Small Thing
Maniac had seen some amazing things in his lifetime, but nothing as amazing as that house. From the smell of it, he knew this wasn’t the first time an animal had relieved itself on the rugless floor. In fact, in another corner he spotted a form of relief that could not be soaked by newspapers.
Cans and bottles lay all over, along with crusts, peelings, cores, scraps, rinds, wrappers--everything you would normally find in a garbage can. And everywhere there were raisins.
As he walked through the dining room, something--an old tennis ball--hit him on top of the head and bounced away. He looked up--into the laughing faces of Russell and Piper. The hole in the ceiling was so big they both could have jumped through it at once.
He ran a hand along one wall. The peeling paint came off like cornflakes.
Nothing could be worse than the living and dining rooms, yet the kitchen was. A jar of peanut butter had crashed to the floor; someone had gotten a running start, jumped into it, and skied a brown, one-footed track to the stove. On the table were what appeared to be the remains of an autopsy performed upon a large bird, possibly a crow. The refrigerator contained two food groups: mustard and beer. The raisins here were even more abundant. He spotted several of them moving. They weren’t raisins; they were roaches.

Jerry Spinelli: Maniac Magee

Marathon Morning
First Draft Snapshots / Sensory Details

It was a typical, gray, rainy morning in April. The sky was pitching hard cold drops of water on the damp pavement. I could feel the anxiety mounting as I looked at my watch.

Despite the cool rain my skin felt dry. As I looked around there were brightly colored runners milling around, looking at their watches, stretching, and drinking water. Billy sat next to me smiling that Cheshire cat smile. That ridiculous bull’s behind cap was perched proudly on his head.

The smell of the damp air clogged my nostrils as my heart began to race. Even though it was quiet with very few voices being heard, it felt like drums were beating and music was playing loudly.

I could feel the tension in my leg muscles building as I walked around trying to stay loose. My mouth was dry as I kept trying to quench my insatiable thirst.

My watch said 11:30, a half hour until show time.


Thoughshots

Unpacking even just the few things in her brown suitcase always seemed a waste of time to Gilly. She never knew if she’d be in a place long enough to make it worth the bother. And yet it was something to fill the time. There were two little drawers at the top and four larger ones below. She put her underwear in one of the little ones and her shirts and jeans in one of the big ones, and then picked up the photograph from the bottom of the suitcase.
Katherine Patterson: The Great Gilly Hopkins


The jolts that took the pilot had come, and now Brian sat and there was a strange feeling of silence in the thrumming roar of the engine-a strange feeling of silence and being alone. Brian was stopped.
He was stopped. Inside he was stopped. He could not think past what he saw, what he felt. All was stopped. The very core of him, the very center of Brain Roberson was stopped and stricken with a white-flash of horror, a terror so intense that his breathing, his thinking, and nearly his heart had stopped.
Stopped.
Seconds passed, seconds that became all of his life, and he began to know what he was seeing, began to understand what he saw and that was worse, so much worse that he wanted to make his mind freeze again.
He was sitting in a bush plane roaring seven thousand feet above the northern wilderness with a pilot who had suffered a massive heart attack and who was either dead or in something close to a coma.
He was alone.
In a roaring plane with no pilot he was alone.
Alone.
Gary Paulsen: Hatchet


Marathon Morning
Thoughtshots

It was a typical, gray, rainy morning in April. The sky was pitching hard, cold drops of water on the damp pavement. I could feel the anxiety mounting as I looked at my watch. What was I doing, why had I gotten myself into running 26.3 miles? I could be home in my warm apartment getting ready to be a spectator rather than a participant.

Despite the cool rain my skin felt dry. I was so glad I had bought a new running suit. As I looked around there were brightly colored runners milling around, looking at their watches, stretching, and drinking water. Billy sat next to me smiling that Cheshire cat smile. That ridiculous bull’s behind cap was perched proudly on his head. I bet he was thinking, now you’ve done it, you’ve challenged us to run the marathon and now the day is here and there is no turning back.

The smell of the damp air clogged my nostrils as my heart began to race. Race, yes, race I thought almost out loud. I thought about the other runners. What were they thinking, were they as nervous as I was?

Even though it was quiet with very few voices being heard, it felt like drums were beating and music was playing loudly. My mind wandered to the last year of training. Five days a week, up at 5:00 a.m., running six miles every morning in the damp, misty air around Lake Quannapowitt.

I could feel the tension in my leg muscles building as I walked around trying to stay loose. My mouth was dry as I kept trying to quench my insatiable thirst. Water, would there be enough along the way? I had to laugh at this thought since there was plenty of water coming out of the sky.

My watch said 11:30, a half hour until show time. I started to picture in my mind the route from Hopkinton to Boston. Some of it I had already run. The other parts were vivid descriptions from the countless books and articles I had read about training for the Boston Marathon.

Wow, the Boston Marathon, I was finally ready to run it and forever prove myself as a runner. I felt a strange calmness come over me as I walked up to the starting line. At that point I knew I could finish. I couldn’t wait to start.


Dialogue

For a long moment they looked at each other in silence, the boy with his arm still raised to his mouth. Neither of them moved. At last his arm fell to his side. “You may as well come out,” he said, with a frown.
Winnie stood up, embarrassed and, because of that, resentful. “I didn’t mean to watch you,” she protested as she stepped into the clearing. “I didn’t know anyone would be here.”
The boy eyed her as she came forward. “What’re you doing here?” he asked her sternly.
“It’s my wood.” said Winnie, surprised by the questions. “I can come here whenever I want to. At least, I was never here before but I could have come, any time.”
“Oh,” said the boy, relaxing a little. “You’re one of the Fosters, then.”
“I’m Winnie,” she said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jesse Tuck,” he answered. “How do.” And he put out a hand.
Winnie took his hand, staring at him. He was even more beautiful up close. “Do you live nearby?” she managed at last, letting go of his hand reluctantly. “I never saw you before. Do you come here a lot? No one’s supposed to. It’s our wood.” Then she added quickly, “It’s all right, though, if you come here. I mean, it’s all right with me.”

Natalie Babbitt: Tuck Everlasting


Marathon Morning
Dialogue

It was a typical, gray, rainy morning in April. The sky was pitching hard cold drops of water on the damp pavement. I could feel the anxiety mounting as I looked at my watch. What was I doing, why had I gotten myself into running 26.3 miles? I could be home in my warm apartment getting ready to be a spectator rather than a participant.

Despite the cool rain my skin felt dry. I was so glad I had bought a new running suit. As I looked around there were brightly colored runners milling around, looking at their watches, stretching, and drinking water. Billy sat next to me smiling that Cheshire cat smile. That ridiculous bull’s behind cap was perched proudly on his head. I bet he was thinking, now you’ve done it, you’ve challenged us to run the marathon and now the day is here and there is no turning back. “That cap is going to get you the newspaper, you know,” I teased as I rolled my eyes.

“You’re just jealous. I wonder where Jan is?” Billy asked in a voice that was trying hard to disguise his nervousness.

The smell of the damp air clogged my nostrils as my heart began to race. Race, yes, race I thought almost out loud. I thought about the other runners, what were they thinking, were they as nervous as I was. Even though it was quiet with very few voices being heard, it felt like drums were beating and music was playing loudly. My mind wandered to the last year of training. Five days a week, up at 5:00 a.m., running six miles every morning in the damp, misty air around Lake Quannapowitt.

I could feel the tension in my leg muscles building as I walked around trying to stay loose. My mouth was dry as I kept trying to quench my insatiable thirst. Water, would there be enough along the way. I had to laugh at this thought since there was plenty of water coming out of the sky.

My watch said 11:30 a half hour until show time. I started to picture in my mind the route from Hopkinton to Boston. Some of it I had already run. The other parts were vivid descriptions from the countless books and articles I had read about training for the Boston Marathon. “Hey, let’s go up to the starting line and check out all of the elite runners, since we won’t see them for at least three and a half hours,” I suggested enthusiastically.


Wow, the Boston Marathon, I was finally ready to run it and forever prove myself as a runner. I felt a strange calmness come over me as I walked to the starting line. At that point I knew I could finish. I couldn’t wait to start. “Good luck, Billy, I know you can do it,” I said smiling my best attempt at that Cheshire cat smile.


Me Circles
Each of the circles helps to generate ideas for personal memoirs. Begin in the middle and tell who you are in terms of your personal relationships. Each of these relationships may be an idea for a personal memoir. The outer circle tells who you are in terms of your hobbies and interests. Each of these may be an idea for a personal memoir.

Interests, hobbies: Examples: skier, reader, biker, traveler, etc.
Who I am in terms of my personal relationships: sister, wife, daughter, friend, etc,.