Memoir Writing

1. Memoir Writing Honors 9th Lit Spring 2014

2. First 10 Create a “quick list of memories that you may want to write about in your memoir.

3. Showing Vs. telling • The children were having fun. • Tumbling off the couch, letting out banshee-like screams, the small children fell to an imaginary death at the foot of the torn and tattered “cliff.”

4. Now, you try it… • I was annoyed with that stupid truck.

5. What is a memoir? • William Zinsser defines it as a ‘portion of life…[it] takes us back to a corner of [our] life that was unusually vivid or intense – childhood, for instance – that was framed by unique events’ (qtd. in Gillespie 48). • Read and annotate excerpt from Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone.

6. Elements of A memoir • Tells about true events that the writer has experienced • Written in first-person POV • Mentions the time, the place, and the people involved • Describes the events in order in which they happened • Indicates the writer’s feeling about the experience

7. Your assignment • Write your own memoir. • Use figurative language (alliteration, personification, metaphor, simile, hyperbole, imagery, onomatopoeia – include a minimum of 4), use dialogue, etc. • Focus on being descriptive, not narrative. • Remember, a memoir is supposed to be true, so don’t exaggerate or embellish the truth too much. • COMPLETED Rough draft due tomorrow – Friday!