We’ve been working on writing memoirs in ELA for the past few weeks. Here is an update of what I’ve accomplished/learned at each stage of the writing process.

 

The part of the writing process that has been the most comfortable for me has probably always been Generating Ideas because I like thinking of fun memories and writing down a lot of ideas.

 

The part of the writing process that has been the most challenging for me has always been Drafting because sometimes I don’t know how to start the story or when to end the story or if my story is a seed story or not.

 

Immersion

 

I’ve learned the characteristics of a memoir include:

Dialogue, Reflection, Something to make the reader feel emotion, and Descriptive language.

 

I think the characteristic I really want to focus on in my writing is more descriptive language because it could make my story better and maybe more people could relate to it.

 

My favorite memoir mentor text was The Chalk Doll because the author made all the little stories connect, and you could predict what story would be next.

Generating Ideas/Selecting

This is a picture of my writer’s notebook:

 

 

 

Why do you want to share this idea/story with others?

I wanted to share this because this story makes me happy and I thought that it would be fun to write about this.

What emotions do you want your reader to feel as they read your memoir?
I want people to feel happy because I felt happy when this happened.

 

Drafting

 

Here is my first draft:

 

 

One thing I think I did really well is starting the story with dialogue because it makes the start of the story sound like you are kind of there.

 

As I head into editing and revising, one thing I want to focus on is putting in more descriptive language because then people can feel like they are there when they’re reading the story.

 

Stay tuned for another post soon as I work on revising my first draft. If you have any SHE (specific, helpful, empathetic) feedback, please leave it as a comment!