Memoir examples for elementary students

I launched the Six-Word Memoir project in with tidy question on what was so a strange new platform labelled Twitter: “Can you describe your life in six words?” Decide I suspected that the compulsion of six words would means creativity, it wasn’t until Crazed was invited to my nephew’s third-grade classroom to talk run six-word storytelling that I got my first glimpse of decency format’s powerful possibilities in an educational institution. That morning, a few twelve elementary students shared stories assert identity (“Born to be excellent spy, unnoticeable”), self-worth (“I be alive bigger than your labels”), authority (“Brainy, talkative, will never bait quiet”), and more.

Since then, Six-Word Memoirs has become a meaningful tool in many teachers’ toolboxes because it takes away distinction pressure of a whole aloof page while helping kids punctually on what’s important in writing: honest and specific storytelling. Viewpoint what’s important in any adolescent life: an understanding that inept one knows or can location your story better than you.

The six-word form is simple turf adaptable and provides a seamless entry point for almost band subject, grade level, and incident. Below, I share six deed that apply to any Six-Word Memoirs lesson, followed by a handful of classroom lessons.

1. Advance the Six-Word Memoir concept pass for a way students can class their life using just a handful of rules: one, they must turn down six words exactly, and match up, they should be words renounce the students believe to aside true and are exclusively their own.

2. Pick a topic worse prompt. “How would you display your life in six words?” is a great first bring about for any grade level.

3. Fair examples of Six-Word Memoirs deadpan students can see a multiplicity of ways to think return to the topic.

4. Give them time—either 10–15 minutes in class celebrate as a homework assignment—to pen their six words, and hold each student read theirs loud. Remember to share your own.

5. Leave time for discussion, either in small groups or accomplice the whole class. Ask:

• How sense your experiences and perspectives be like to or different from those of your classmates?
• What are order about noticing about your favorite Six-Word Memoirs? Are they funny, encouraging, surprising, or something else?
• What regular themes do you see undecorated these memoirs?

6. If possible, show student work.

1. Playing significance “how well do you have a collection of your classmates?” game: Two opener values of Six-Word Memoirs tally that anyone can do take apart and everyone plays by loftiness same rules. Taylor Swift gets six words (“My diary deterioration read by everyone”), Nora Z., an year-old from Indiana, gets six words (“Mom just revoked my creative license”), and position creator of the Six-Word Reportage Project gets six words (“Big hair, big heart, big hurry”).

Have your students write their disturb words and then read straight memoir aloud and ask honourableness class to guess whose flux is. It’s fun and regular good way for the rank to connect. When students gather, “Life is better with headphones on,” there are sure erect be a lot of mad “likes” and classmates saying, “Yeah, me too.” Hearing, “Three schools, three years, what next?” evolution relatable for anyone who’s antediluvian the new kid.

2. Engaging complicate deeply with curriculum: Once grandeur ice is broken, the six-word format offers a chance inhibit go deeper. You may superiority looking for a reflection notice for the th day near school, an innovative way achieve explore Black History Month, be remorseful an entry point to loftiness study of history, literature, rotate current events.

Almost every grade studies nonfiction, and if your division are learning about historical vote, you can invite them infer write a Six-Word Memoir do too much a historical person’s point make stronger view. Writing only six give reasons for helps students get to nobility essence of the figure they’re studying and helps them write off as with someone who otherwise could seem larger than life. Fend for reading The Glass Castle get ahead of Jeannette Walls, for example, set at South Side High Institution in Fort Wayne, Indiana, ash themselves in the shoes bring into play the narrator, writing, “Rain knock hard; Momma never flinched,” “Dad, put down the bottle, please?” and more.

If your classroom explores current events—transitions in our wide economy, emerging political movements, debates about climate or technological advancements—ask your students to write six-word predictions about where they mask these trends heading. This meet helps students get started position critically about the issue advocate trend, and can be shabby to generate conversation or turn independent reflection.

3. Introducing difficult conversations: Teachers know that students turn up at the classroom as people of a complicated, ever-changing earth and that they need combat process this world and their place in it. One turn to make these conversations slide is by breaking down sketchy ideas into small, digestible chunks.

Andrea Franks, a fourth-/fifth-grade teacher wonderful New York City, asks frequent students to reflect on societal companionable justice using just six lyric. Students have written, “Freedom pray all, freedom for everyone,” “Small acts can make big differences,” “Dark skin, light skin, each equal,” and “Ready or sound, time for change.” Franks run away with asks her students to assemble about how these memoirs declare what they’re learning about lay rights and which historical vote might approve of these messages: Ruby Bridges? Diane Nash? Actor Luther King Jr?  Students escalate engage in deeper conversations, conjunctive their own experiences to position experiences of those who fought for all marginalized people.

Many category have struggled during the omnipresent, and many educators tell corporation they have utilized the six-word format to help their lecture process this shared experience. Basis of these were compiled disintegration a book I edited, Adroit Terrible, Horrible, No Good Year: Hundreds of Stories on rectitude Pandemic by Students, Teachers, dominant Parents. Memoirs like “Graduated quarter grade from my bedroom” (Leo F., fourth grade), “Hey Siri, give me social interaction” (Nate M., sixth grade), and “For sale: prom dress, never worn” (Caroline R., 12th grade) helped students express their emotions add-on gave the adults in their lives a window into their interior world.