6 Week Memoir Unit

We have had a strong start to our Terra Nova testing week! Thursday will be the final day of testing.
Friday marks the official start of our memoir unit. Here is an outline of what the next six weeks will look like:

Week One: Immersion in the Memoir Genre
-students read as many memoir picture books and excerpts from memoir novels as possible
-we will continue our class read, "House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros

Week Two: Notebook Generating
-students generate as many entries in their writer's notebook as possible, including lists, sketches, bits of remembered dialogue, events, episodes and images

Week Three: Selecting, Collecting and Layering in the Memoir Notebook
-Students choose a lens, frame, angle or theme as a focus for their memoir draft- after selecting a main topic, they begin filling in a graphic organizing and thinking about how they would like to organize this piece of writing

Week Four: Planning and Drafting
-Students complete graphic organizers and begin writing their first drafts

Week Five: Drafting and Revising
-Students continue to draft their memoirs, applying several revision strategies- they share their changing versions with classmates and teacher, getting feedback on what works and what still needs fine tuning

Week Six: Editing, Publishing, Celebrating
-Students reread their final draft, adding, changing and fixing the surface features of punctuation and grammar. A final, corrected copy will be typed and placed into writing portfolios
-Students read their published memoir to an audience of friends, family and peers.

Stay tuned for the date of our Memoir Celebration!