National Endowment for the Humanities
“Twelve Years a Slave”: Analyzing Slave Narratives
Readers of Solomon Northup's brutally frank slave narrative Twelve Years a Slave examine passages that support the argument that slavery "undermined and corrupted" the institution of marriage. Background information is provided by a...
Curated OER
Less is More: How to Write a Six-Word Memoir like Ernest Hemingway
Follow Ernest Hemingway's lead and lead and teach your pupils to write their own six-word memoir!
Curated OER
Truth Be Told
Encourage your middle and high schoolers to share their memories of a recent event. After reading a New York Times article, they discuss Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night. They write their own memoir about a significant event that affected...
Curated OER
Genre Lesson: Autobiography
Start kids thinking about point of view and autobiographies by telling them a short story about your morning (first person), and then asking a volunteer to re-tell the story to you (second person). There are tips to help you tie this...
Georgia Department of Education
Exploring Poetry and Poets
Combine the study of poetry and non-fiction texts with this complete and ready-to-use six-week unit. After reading numerous poems from local writers and compiling a personal anthology, high schoolers find and read a memoir or biography...
Curated OER
Writing and Autobiography
Are you working on an autobiographical or narrative writing unit? Bring this lesson to your class, as it takes young writers through the process of drafting and sequencing an autobiography. After observing and demonstrating steps of the...
Curated OER
A Year in Review: The Memoir
If you are planning a unit on memoir and autobiographical narrative, you should consider this resource. Using Internet research skills, pupils review works by James Frey and Henry David Thoreau. In response to these works, learners...
Bright Hub Education
How to Outline, Plan & Write a Memoir
Get to know each individual through a memoir project. The lesson outlined here is a bit vague, but has some promising ideas for graphic organizers to help writers prepare their work. In order to succeed with the lesson, you will need to...
Curated OER
What is Your Story?
Young scholars listen to Picnic In October and Memory Coat to explore the concept of memoirs. They interview a family member and write a personal memoir that reflects their own family history.
Curated OER
Writing a Personal Narrative
Students complete a variety of computer file pre-writing activities to help them prepare for writing a personal narrative. They focus on including a beginning, middle and end to their narrative. They make a class book.
Curated OER
Reading Examples
Young writers read excerpts from Gary Paulsen's memoir to identify figurative and literal language that contain sensory details. They determine which selections are examples of sensory language and fi the language is used literally or...
Curated OER
Genre Lesson: Autobiography
Have your middle schoolers write a short story about themselves with an autobiography unit about Rosa Parks. They learn the difference between biographies and autobiographies, define the different types of autobiographies and determine...
Curated OER
Finding Science in An American Childhood by Annie Dillard
Students read excerpts from Annie Dillard's memoir, "An American Childhood," with the teacher. They experience opportunities to connect English, science, nature and art together from a new and unique perspective. This approach serves as...
Curated OER
When I Was Young in Brooklyn
Students identify various techniques used in memoirs. They reflect on similarities and differences betwee two authors. Students define the term memior. They write about various techiques they noticed the authors used. Students write...
Curated OER
Finding Your Story: Helping Students Begin Their Memoir
Students write their memoir. In this memoir lesson, students study the differences between an autobiography and a memoir. Students construct an outline as the basis for their memoir.
Curated OER
A Life in Freeze Frame
In this reading project instructional activity, students read a biography, autobiography, or memoir and think of the person's life as a movie. Students create a picture for scenes from that person's life. Students include a caption or...
Curated OER
Gandhi's Autobiography and the Study of Memoir
Seventh graders explore the life of Gandhi using his autobiography and memoir. In this Gandhi exploration lesson, 7th graders analyze Gandhi's literary voice by reading his autobiography. Students identify literary techniques in Gandhi's...
Curated OER
Exploring the Personal Narrative
Students define the characteristics of a personal narrative, explain the difference between a 'memoir' and an 'autobiography', and create a reading journal in which they will log their reading activities. For this personal narrative...
Curated OER
Shelby County: The Regulator-Moderator War
Seventh graders comprehend the importance of the Regulator-Moderator War through John W. Middleton's memoir. They comprehend how the different motivations held by each faction began the conflict. Students are shown the map of Shelby...
Curated OER
From Memoir to Expository Writing with Advanced English Language Learners
Learners create a memoir. They compare writing with story telling and personal experience. They analyze how they learn, so they can begin to look critically at their own learning.
Curated OER
Nudging Questions
Students choose one topic to write about. They brainstorm ideas about their topic or incident. They use sensory details to visualize their topic. They answer a variety of teacher directored nudging question to help them describe their...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Memoirs About Food and Kitchens
In this review, the author discusses Sharon Creech's book entitled Granny Torrelli Makes Soup. A brainstorming activity to prepare students for descriptive writing is provided. activity about author's voice and word choice follow the...
Georgia Department of Education
Ga Virtual Learning: Contemporary Literature: Survival
This is an introduction to a unit on survival literature; it focuses on the memoir Night by Elie Weisel, hie story of survival of The Holocaust.