Short Memoir & Reflection

START by reading the assignment details: short memoir checklist and the memoir reflection checklist

• ​Make sure you're reading a memoir: Choice of memoirs to read for this project.
• Here's the rubric with questions for you to prepare for your 2 Book Talks.

Step 1. Find a topic

• Do your LIFE GRAPH both sides. This is mine.

• Do these quick-writes (less than 5 minutes on each prompt):
  • List 5 things you know for sure about life and why; Name 5 critical incidents / people in your life and how they have shaped you - they can be positive or negative; Write 5 life mottos / bumper stickers that describe your philosophy of life and describe what each one means to you; List 5 things / mistakes you'll never make again and why (from eating stinky cheese to trusting the wrong person - can be serious, funny, quirky, melancholy, optimistic - must be YOU); 5 things you most want out of life and why; lastly, name the 5 things you would metaphorically kill or die for - the stuff you believe in so strongly you'll take on any comers to protect/safeguard and explain how you have come to feel so strongly about these.

Watch this video to get more ideas of lessons you've learned, values you have, stories you may have to tell, which may make goof topics for memoir.

Step. 2 Make sure you know what a memoir is

• Read the professional model text "Big Boy" by David Sedaris. Notice the main literary elements in this memoir as well as in the one you are reading.
• Read the student model text "My Life Because of You" and see if you can find / identify all the key elements.
• Read The New Yorker article "A Memoir is not a Status Update" by Dani Shapiro to make sure you understand what a memoir is and isn't. Use this information to help you decide on the topic for your short memoir. PDF version here. 
• Some helpful websites: Writers Write The Truth about Memoirs series; The Happy Self-Publisher's "The Memoir Through Line"; Writer's Digest "The Key Elements of Writing a Good Memoir" (source for a lot of the handout material); The Write Life "How to Write a Memoir"; and Memoir Writing for Geniuses
• Pay attention: You are reading a full-length memoir after all.

Step 3. Plan

• From all your topic brainstorming, life graph, etc, Choose ONE lesson, value, idea, realization you want to write about, share with others, and start planning the memoir - think beginning, middle and end - and in narrative episodes (emotional beats). In other words, which stories, ideas, concepts will you tell/describe in each part of your memoir in point form. For this you must use the Memoir Planning Sheet / Outline template provided, referring to the key aspects of a memoir handout, and include your initiating incident and ending incident with desire line, as well as fleshing out a minimum of three (3) emotional beats. Again, this plan does not have to be chronological, but you're mapping the components of this memoir.
• See Sauvé's example outline.

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Step 4. Draft

• DO these 7 Mandatory Memoir Writing Exercises to flesh out, add detail to, and develop the writing of your short memoir - don't repeat an exercise for the same part of your memoir, each exercise should ADD a part to your memoir. Think in short paragraphs. Make them useful.
• Type these up and keep a running draft. This means you will move things around and add on.
• REMEMBER this is a school project. You are the writer. You may have 5 topics, choose the one you're most comfortable sharing with me. YOU decide.

Step 5. Have a FULL, coherent, typed draft with draft title ideas
Organize a full, typed draft, in order. Make sure the 7 exercises / techniques / devices, plus 3 other literary techniques, are used and evident.

• Brainstorm your title by trying out the following titles exercises (remember how important the title is to the whole text):
  • ​You MUST have a title. Use the titles of the memoirs on the reading list as inspiration. Think about your memoir, your journey, your lessons
  • Use the 6-word memoir idea inspired by Hemingway's very short story "For sale: Baby shoes, never worn". What 6 words would you use to represent the memoir you have written?
  • Use Damaged, Night, and/or The Glass Castle to think up an adjective, a time of day/season/part of nature, or a symbol to title your work, eg Worried, Useless, Afraid, Brave OR Moonlight, Dawn, Rainfall, Dew OR Birch Trees, Monotone Rainbow, Paper Shadows, Field of Dreams etc.
  • Use Hero of the Underground, Girl, Interrupted, Million Little Pieces, etc and copy the phraseology of the title but switch out the words to words that represent your memoir, eg, Hero of My Imagination; Childhood, Lost; One Hundred Grains of Sand; etc...
  • Use Eat, Pray, Love and come up with 3 words that represent your memoir - eg Fight, Relent, Repeat; Naive, Hurt, Grateful

• DO the following subtitles Workshop. You MUST also use a subtitle - this comes after the colon and can also be inspired by the models:
  • A Long Way Gone: A memoir OR a short memoir
  • Smashed: The story of a drunken childhood OR Worried: My battle with anxiety
  • _____ : One woman's adventure in ____
  • ____ : One man's journey to _____
  • _____ : A true story of redemption
  • ____ : A summer in Italy
  • _____ : My struggle with _____
• Create your draft title(s) by combining a poetic title, a colon, and a more detailed subtitle. In other words "this is my story" is not acceptable, nor is simple My Battle with Depression - YOU NEED BOTH a title and a subtitle and make them interesting.
• Highlight and label all 7 mandatory techniques, plus 3 other literary techniques of your choice, as well as your titles workshop exercises.
• See Sauvé's example. You'll note, it's a page too long.

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Step 6. Peer- and Self-Review

• ​Prepare questions for the peer review conference - what do you want help with regarding your draft? 

• Share this highlighted, labelled, titled, typed rough draft with at least one peer and get their feedback in a different colours on your work.
• Review and write your own notes to yourself on this same draft in another colour about what you will work on as you reread and revise your memoir.
• See Sauve's example. Down to 4 pages, notes to self and second peer review comments visible. 

Step 7. Polish

• Using all the feedback, revise and refine this into your good copy.
• ADD on IF you need to with these optional exercises
• Finalize the good copy (check the checklist)
• See Sauvé's final good copy.

Step 8. Write the reflection:

• Write your reflection (check the checklist).
• See Sauvé's reflection.​

Step 9. Submit the following 3 things in the Teams assignment:

1. Typed, rough draft memoir with 10 techniques labelled and highlighted (7 mandatory + 3 other), title ideas, and evidence of peer- and self-review
2. The good copy of the memoir
3. The good copy of the reflection ​