Teaching Strategies
Part One (Personal Memoirs): Who Said a MEmoir Is Only About “ME”?21
The first part of my curriculum unit begins with getting students to read and study exemplar memoirs as they make connections to their personal lives. I have developed a series of innovative activities that teachers can use to help students to read and write memoirs with greater understanding, enjoyment, freedom, creativity and power. As students read model essays by well-established writers, they will learn how writers assemble words purposefully to achieve the desired effects. It’s also essential that time and space are invested for each memoir to go through a series of revision, peer review, discussion of writer’s craft, and face-to-face conference. Otherwise, the memoir will just be another meaningless assignment.
Over the course of a marking period, approximately 6 to 10 weeks, students will read model excerpts of essays as they compose memoirs based on a personal experience that is vital in defining who they are. Students will read mentor texts as models of good writing, keep irrelevant ideas from their reading, tweak the sound of their voice with writer’s craft, and participate actively during writer’s workshop. Through sharing platforms like Google Docs and other online writing programs, each draft will go through a cycle of (at least 3) reviews by peers and teachers. The final drafts of these personal narratives will be arranged into categories based on their political points. It is important for students to publish their memoirs on a writing website or as a class book through self-publishing or an online publishing company. Having students read their essays aloud is another way to give them feedback, allow them to polish their writing and develop better writing skills. When writings are published together and given a public audience, it adds a sense of urgency, legitimacy, value and shared purpose to the work and process.
General Theme for Memoir: My Heritage and Who Am I?
My students whimpered when I give them the typical writing assignments with a 1 to 4 number rubrics to follow. The Pennsylvania Writing Assessment scores students on five basic domains: focus, content, organization, style and conventions of language. Research paper, informational essay and textual dependent analysis will get a louder groan. But if I ask my students to write about themselves or a subject they love, their faces relax and they write more. So, a memoir is an ideal format to encourage students to write. A memoir is an account of a personal experience based on the person’s life and past experiences. It is usually written in the first person.
Try this approach with your students to get the maximal results, read aloud the following quote: “The best gift you have to offer when you write personal history is the gift of yourself. Give yourself permission to write about yourself, and have a good time doing it.”22 Or the teacher can say: “I will give you the permission to write freely. Be yourself and your readers will follow you anywhere.”23 Ask students to write about a truly meaningful past experience that had made them who they are. Remind them to imagine the emotional impacts their personal narratives could have on their readers. This approach would also allow students to get to know each other better and for the class to grow closer as a community of learners.
Introduce the Term “Memoir” and the Six-Word Memoir Project
In addition to the above approach, introduce students to the term “memoir” with a low-risk online project: Challenge students to tell their life story in exactly 6 words and publish it on the website sixwordsmemoirs.com. There are over 1 million submissions and counting. The idea was said to have started with Ernest Hemingway being challenged to write a memoir with only six words. His response was “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”24 In 2006, Larry Smith, founder of SMITH magazine, started the Six-Word Memoir Project. The project has been featured in NPR, The New Yorker, inside Honest Tea bottle caps, and thousands of blogs and YouTube videos.25
Reading for Writing Lessons (Imitating Model Essays and Daily Routine)
Remind students that it is an ongoing learning process as they read essays in order to write better. After establishing a reading and writing routine, use essays from The Norton Reader or complex nonfiction text of your choice to model good reading and writing. These essays can also serve as the foundation for discussing opening sentence, ending sentence, sensory details, writer’s craft, themes, main ideas, plot sequence, and text structure. Refer to “Classroom Activities” for sample lessons and excerpts from The Norton Reader.
During the school year, establish a daily writing routine with classwork and homework. Have students write every day in a wide range of formats, purposes and situations. For instance, students can write for 15 minutes as first thing in the morning, or write for 15 minutes at home to reflect on what they learn that day. Teachers can also generate a weekly or monthly list of prompts that includes student input as well as offers choices. Sample prompts: I remember…; My family has a secret…; I am home for. Sample Prompts for Arguments: An unfinished argument with myself; Who will win…; I believe in…; I don’t believe in…; I want to change.
Keeping a Notebook for Yourself
In her essay On Keeping a Notebook, Joan Didion explains how keeping a notebook is different from writing in a diary or recording the world as it is.26 Yes, both a diary and a notebook are private. But her way of keeping a notebook is more like her personal window to the world of possibilities. She explains how one person’s notebook means nothing to another person because what is written may trigger memories and ideas other than what is actually written on the page.
Keeping a notebook is a great strategy. It allows students the space and freedom to jolt down, sketch out, and collect incomplete thoughts and soft impressions of the external world. These private notebooks can serve as memory scrapbooks of writings, drawings, photos as well as scrap papers like tickets, candy wrappers, and news clippings. Teachers often model the “pre-writing” or “brainstorming” process by using graphic organizers to organize ideas. There is nothing wrong with supporting students with graphic organizers, but sometimes so much emphasis is put on how ideas are organized that the ideas can mysteriously be lost in the process. Therefore, it is crucial for students to collecting ideas without the demand of pleasing the teacher.
At the beginning of the school year, have student keep a notebook to record inner thoughts, ideas, observations, sounds and interesting conversations. Let students keep at least one private notebook, but make them accountable with the number of entries and the amount of time spent writing. Have students write every day in a variety of different situations: silently or with music, sitting down or standing up, in the classroom or during a walking tour around the neighborhood, by themselves or with a partner, handwrite with a pen or type on a laptop. I would also advocate for students to free writing at least once a week together as a class. Here free writing can take the form of writing nonstop for 10 minutes without taking the pencil off the page. If students need writing prompts to jumpstart their ideas, it is better to use prompts that solicit open-ended responses, so as to leave room for creative thinking.
Writer Workshops and the Sound of Your Voice
Students will begin to compose their memoirs after a week of “reading for writing” lessons, activities, and other writing experiments. Writer workshops will be held in small group of 4 to 6 students during the Literacy Block while other students are working independently on other literacy center activities. During the revision stage, students will share their drafts online for peer and teacher feedback with at least three people.
What is the sound of your writing voice? Zinnser speaks about how to find your voice that the readers will enjoy. The process is a matter of taste as well as a matter of practicing to say the same things in different ways. So, it is important to allow students opportunities to investigate and even imitate the voices of excellent writers and orators. Let students read sample personal narratives from online collections such as longform.com as well as excerpt from The Norton Reader. The website TeenInk publishes essays written by teens from around the country. Students can read about teens struggling with everything from racism to self-image and depression as well as descriptions of cultural celebrations and dance performances.
What is the sound of your speaking voice? Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Speech is power: Speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel,”27 It is crucial to have students read aloud excerpts of modern essays as well as listen to landmark speeches. By reading out loud their own and their classmates’ personal narratives, students will start to recognize how a writer’s voice reveals his or her authentic self. The actual sound of a voice can be quite different from how it is written on a page. Have students listen to speeches such as Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream” (1963), Hillary Clinton’s “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights” (1995), Aung San Suu Kyr’s “Freedom from Fear” (1990), Maya Angelou’s “On the Pulse of Morning” (1993) as well as speeches by kids on YouTubes such as Kid President, Adora Svitak’s “What adults can learn from kids?” (2010), and Sophie Cruz’s Speech at the Women’s March on Washington (2017). Use free websites such as ttsreader.com to allow students to record their voice reading as well as have their written works read out loud by a computer-generated voice or another classmate.
Part Two (Public Arguments): Who Said Writing Has to Be a Solitary Pursuit?
The second part of this unit is an innovative approach for students to write together using all of the public points generated from their memoirs to write a class essay. Students will benefit from reading examples of mentor texts from The Norton Reader as they read to learn how to write arguments effectively. According to the writer John McFee, “The approach to [essay] structure in factual writing is like returning from a grocery store with materials you intend to cook for dinner.”28 Remind students that writing an argument is an organic process.
To help students to define their public points, ask questions such as: What is the purpose of your writing? What emotional impact do you want your audience to have? What wisdom do you want your readers to leave with? These questions will help students to develop a written approach for their public points. Some possible political topics to help students to construct their public points include: childhood, milestones, class, cultures, educating & schooling, gender, home and family, law & justice, life & death, pop culture, race, religion, politics, death and life struggles. Each “public point group” will research, write and strategize a verbal argument to convince the entire class to choose their political issue for one collaborative essay.
This approach is deeply rooted with my past successes with two Philadelphia-based programs: Need in Deed and the Lenfest Citizenship Essay Challenge. Need in Deed is a service-learning program that promotes student voice in the classroom. Over the course of a school year, students are asked to choose one social issue (such as mental health, homelessness, gun control, animal cruelty or child abuse) to research extensively, interview community partners and experts for possible solutions, and propose a service-learning project to benefit the targeted audience. The Lenfest Citizenship Challenge is an annual essay contest sponsored by the Rendell Center for Civics and Civic Engagement, specifically for 4th and 5th grade classrooms. Each class is asked to write a civic essay answering a challenge question. Previous questions include: “Should the United States Constitution be amended to eliminate the Electoral College system for selecting the President and replace it with the national popular vote? If not, why? If so, why and how?” (2016); Should the U.S. Constitution be amended to impose term limits on members of Congress and the Supreme Court? Why or why not? If so, what should the limits be? (2017); and Why is the First Amendment important to you? (2018).
The Constitutional Convention Essay Model for CW
After students have been divided into committees based on their public points, each committee will elect a facilitator, a notetaker, a writer, a reporter, a time keeper and a tie-breaker to write and present a speech to be delivered to the whole class. The challenge is to get ALL of the students to agree on ONE public point to do further research before writing a public letter. In order to compose a successful argumentative essay as a class, it is obvious that the teachers need to know their students and have a good handle on the content knowledge needed for the essay. However, even if a teacher doesn’t know their students well or doesn’t have a lot of content knowledge, the collaborative writing approach will allow more opportunities for students to take on the expert roles while the teacher facilitates the writing process. This type of social interaction creates the atmosphere needed to build a community of learners and teachers. Before the class begins writing together, the teacher needs to organize the student groups and the research topics strategically. Teachers should group students homogeneously or heterogeneously according to gender, background, race, language skills, reading levels, writing abilities, personalities, oratorical skills, and/or leadership skills.
For instance, with the Lenfest Essay Challenge in 2017, I divided 32 students into 6 groups of 4 or 6 students. Because I had 6 groups, we as a class decided on the following 6 arguments to begin our research about term limits. For the 2017 Question, I divided the class into 6 debate teams. Team 1: Too Much Power v. Band-aid Solution. Team 2: Abolish Seniority v. Fight Ageism. Team 3: Campaign Fundraising and Lobbyists v. Appointments. Team 4: New Candidates v. Experienced Veterans. Team 5: Career Politicians v. Non-bipartisan Judges. Team 6: Amendment Changes v. Leave the Constitution Alone.
After dividing a class into their subgroups, teach students some common argumentative strategies. Zinnser states that all writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.29 Collaborative writing is inquisitive and culturally responsive to the needs of all learners; it is a way to include every student regardless of language proficiency, gender difference and academic abilities. The challenge is to get students to agree on what would unite the essay as one without losing the differences contributed by each individual. Zinnser suggests the following questions to ask and I have changed the pronoun “I” to “we”.30 In what capacity are we going to address the reader? Reporter? Average person? What pronoun and tense are we going to use? What style? Impersonal reportorial? Personal but formal? Personal and casual? What attitude are we going to take? Involved? Detached? Judgmental? Ironic? Amused? How much do we want to cover? What one point do we want to make?
General Theme for Argumentative Essays: What Does It Mean to Be American?
Besides using argumentative topics, students can also use the theme of American Identity to define who they are as a community. Instead of a collection of writings by different writers, students would produce one effective essay that includes multiple writers with multiple opinions that also honors their unique American voices. Writing a cohesive essay together forces students to take a stand, articulate the issue, and defend their position. The purpose of incorporating personal narratives is to get students to see that their life stories are not only important in their own lives, but also have political impact for other people. Writing helps students to understand that when we withhold things that make us feel weak, we are actually withholding ourselves from knowing ourselves, and our political power. Flexible grouping is necessary to enrich and accommodate the social, intellectual and procedural complexity demanded by working together.
Five Basic Text Structures in Informational Essay
One way to help students to read and write better is to teach them how to identify text structures in informational essays. Text structures are not the same as text features such as headings, subheadings, table of contents, index, glossary, bold words, pictures and caption, sidebars, maps, and labeled diagrams. Basically, text structure is about the overall organization of an essay. In contrast, text features are all the parts that are not the main body of the essay. Common text structures of informational essays include description, chronological order, cause & effect, compare & contrast, and problem & solution. Research by the National Institute for Literacy (2007) shows that when students are explicitly taught to identify text structure as they read and write, they understand the material better.31 Signal words such as “about”, “first, second and last”, “as a result”, “similarities”, “differences” and “because” can help students to identify the text structure and have a better grasp of the text they are reading and writing.
Five Types of Claim Statements in Argumentative Essays
In most argumentative essays, writers use one or more (disputable) claim statements to persuade the readers to accept a position. A claim statement is sometimes called a thesis statement or a premise. A strong claim statement is specific and focused. Avoid using general words like “good,” “bad,” “everyone,” “never,” and “always.” The five basic types of claim statements are based on: 1) fact, 2) definition, 3) value, 4) cause & effect and, 5) policy.
Here are examples of the five basic types of claim statements from The Norton Reader. Fact Claim: “Leon Lefkowitz, chairman of the department of social studies at Central High School in Valley Stream, New York, interviewed 300 college students at random, and reports that 200 of them didn’t think that the education they were getting was worth the effort.”32 Definition Claim: “His grandmother, however, said, ‘The cat was born in the oven. Does that make him bread?’”33 Value Claim: “ More interesting to me is what games can do and how they make me feel while they are doing it.”34 Cause & Effect Claim: “Each time the bridge of our body falls down, we build it up again.”35 Policy Claim: “The target we should be setting for ourselves is not halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, and without enough to eat, but ensuring that no one, or virtually no one, needs to live in such degrading conditions.”36
Argumentative Essay Text Structure Methods
After students have ample practices on how to identify a claim statement, support them as they establish the overall structure of their argumentative essays. Here are three helpful methods to outline the overall organization of an argument: Aristotelian (Classical), Rogerian and Toulmin. Allow students time to investigate the similarities and differences among the three types of arguments. The Aristotelian Method argues an issue using evidence and refutation. The Rogerian Method argues an issue emphasizing similarity with your opponent’s belief. The Toulmin Method argues an issue emphasizing the strength of evidence. Teachers may want to put students in teams according to their public points and assign any of the three types of arguments. Have students extend their one paragraph-argument by using headings of the method they have chosen: 1) introduction, background, proposition, proof, refutation, and conclusion for the Aristotelian Method; 2) problem, opposing views, understanding statement, position, contexts and benefits for the Rogerian Method; 3) data, claim, warrants qualifiers, rebuttals and backing for the Toulmin Method. Another more general method is to have students structure an argument with a hook, a claim statement, supporting evidences, a rebuttal and conclude with a proposal.
Rhetorical Strategies
Explain to students how writers use rhetorical strategies to achieve certain purpose and effect on their audiences. These rhetorical strategies can be divided into 5 different tracks: pathos (emotion), big names (experts), ethos (character of writer), logos (reason), and Kairos (timeliness). Challenge students to develop their own unique voice and author’s craft as they decide which rhetorical strategies would be most effective for the argumentative class essay. Lastly, as a whole class, make a simplified diagram as a schematic representation to illustrate the overall structure of the class essay. Then the class may want to label the diagram with annotated notes, labels, topics, and other connections to evaluate their class argument.
Letter Writing and Letter Format
Have students write their arguments in a letter format will give them a purpose and an audience. Here are some examples of writing prompts teachers may want to use: Write a letter to your future child, to a famous person, to the President of the United States, to the school principal, to an inanimate object, to your biggest fear, to yourself in the voice of someone else.
Langston Hughes’ poem titled “Will V-Day Be Me-Day?” acts like a public open letter as well as a poem. A letter poem uses the idea and form of letter, and applies poetic devices like figurative language. The first two lines “Over There, World War II” define the setting and act like a mailing address for the letter to be sent oversea. The next two lines read: “Dear Fellow Americans, I write this letter…” and at the end of the poem, the speaker signed off with “Sincerely, GI Joe.”37 The poem is written in the first person by an African-American man who felt that the victory won after WWII was not really a victory for “me, a black man.” The speaker raises many concerns about his future as a black man returning to America after the war. He is asking thought-provoking questions such as: Will you herd me in a Jim Crow car like cattle or will you stand up like a man at home and take your stand for Democracy?38 The poem’s speaker continues to explain how white and black American soldiers were segregated during combat, but after WWII, segregation was still a practice at home. There was no “Double V” as African Americans had hoped. Hughes’ letter poem can serve as a template for students to jolt down key ideas and questions for their argumentative essays.
Speech Writing and Oratorical Mastery
Writing is an abstract, voluntary and conscious activity, in contrast to day-to-day oral speech which is often a spontaneous, involuntary and nonconscious activity.39 Public speaking falls between these two activities. In order to become a great public speaker, students need to be prepared, memorize concepts (not script), make eye contact, show poise, convey confidence, make words flow, and connect with the audience. Therefore, it is important to allow students time to practice speaking, and not just reading aloud their written arguments. Pair them with a partner or in a small group to practice, practice, practice and keep at it! As reading will improve students’ writing, the speaking will also improve their writing and reading abilities.
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