Memoir Writing

MEMOIR WRITING

Honors 9th Lit

Spring 2014

FIRST 10

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

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.”

NOW, YOU TRY IT…

I was annoyed with that stupid truck.

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.

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

YOUR ASSIGNMENTWrite 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!