Assisting Young Writers to Create Meaningful Memoirs

 



Young writers are inexperienced at writing memoir, but there are some significant actions teachers can take to significantly support and enhance the writing they produce…

Memoir is detection, the sifting through a million lived moments in order to identify the most memorable ones. 

The memoir writer rebuilds a part of their life, piece by piece to share with a reader. The spark for the memoir might come from the colour of a favourite pencil, the secrets held safely by an old teddy. A first pet.  It might involve adventures in your neighbourhood, the sounds, shapes and smells of your first house, that special tree, your first disappointment, an incident, an accident. A place that holds a story.




Just as home is the place we know best, our families are at the centre of the stories we often hold dear.
Some of the experiences the writer is having right now may remain with them forever as memories. The challenge for the writer is to capture them in their writing…
 
The memoirist must ask:
•      What are the standout memories I want to hold on to forever?
•      Is there a time in my life when I figured out something I didn’t know before? or when a truth was revealed?
•      Is there time in my life when I thought a certain way and then something/someone changed my way of thinking?
 
Sometimes creating a timeline helps young writers identify significant events in their lives.
 
When writing memoir encourages young writers to ask themselves:
Am I being honest? 
Am I telling the truth?
Would I think this?
Would I say this?
 
Do not paint yourself as a perfect hero who never makes mistakes.
Use pronouns like- I, me, or my.
Dialogue is important. It can move the story forward and has a dramatic input if use well.
Look back and reflect on possible life lessons you learned from your chosen experience.
 
I strongly recommend letting your student writers’ access age-appropriate extracts from memoirs. They need to get a sense of the language used in a memoir.

From my personal library, I frequently use:
  • Marshfield Dreams. Ralph Fletcher
  • Land’s Edge, Tim Winton
  • When I Was Your Age, Amy Ehrlich, Ed. 
  • Worse Things Happen at Sea, William McInnes, Sarah Watt
  • Knots In My Yo-yo String, Jerry Spinelli
  • Boy, Roald Dahl
  • Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, Amy Krouse Rosenthal

 No doubt you will have other mentor texts you can call upon.
 
On this occasion I am sharing three memoir extracts from my own catalogue. All related to my early life
Memoir Lead Examples:
 
 ‘Fire needs to be treated with respect. One moment it is providing cozy warmth and just as quickly it can turn on you and you are cinders before you’ve had time to blink. Let me tell you about a time long ago when fire made a flaming idiot out of me.’
(The lead sets up the story with clues)
 
‘These events came after the need for a night light had faded and the fear of choking on Brussel-sprouts had passed. They began in my final year of primary school and involved my entire family in a move that changed all our lives…’
(The lead introduces the concept of time and family changes)
 
‘My Mother was the eldest girl in her family of nine children. Her younger sisters were often given the job of taking me for walks around the streets of Blackburn, probably to give my mum, a well-deserved break. During those many walks we often passed a convent with high, grey stone walls. To make sure I behaved during these wanderings, my aunts would tell me harrowing tales of what lay beyond those grim, stone walls. ‘On the other side of that wall is the home for very naughty children.’  
As if this wasn’t enough to frighten the living daylights out of a small boy, they also let me know that the nuns in charge of these wild and wicked children had a secret weapon for controlling them.
‘Those nuns have trained huge elephants to squash any naughty little boys who refuse to co-operate.’
By this stage I was almost wetting myself with fear. They would lean in very close to me and whisper in my tender little ear “If you misbehave while we are out walking, we’ll turn you over to the nuns!” As a result, I was like an angel walking…’
(The lead uses an element of humour in the telling of a childhood event)
 
Encourage young writers to think of memoir as a lens on their life.
Before they write ask the memoirist to relive the elements of their chosen moment/moments. TALKING to family or friends may help you in recalling important details and being accurate. Take notes of important details and facts.

It will help if the writer practices telling the story before they pick up a pen. Writers frequently tell their stories many times before they sit down to write their best version of the events.
When the time comes to write, consider starting with:
A dramatic moment. Drop the reader right into the situation.
In ‘The Glass Castle,’ author Jeanette Walls opens with a scene in a trailer park in Arizona. She is three years old and standing on a chair in front of a stove wearing a pink tutu and cooking hot dogs. She suddenly notices her dress is on fire! It is such a dramatic and unexpected opening.

Other possibilities include:
-A family secret you have discovered
-A confession.
When writing a memoir, make the end as memorable as the beginning. It is important to remember that in a memoir you are the central character. 

Give your reader a feeling that you grew or changed because of the memoir moment. The quality of the writing will be enhanced if you factor in these considerations. particularly if the writer understands their stories are an important extension of who they are and the unique life they are living.  I've seen it before in classrooms that fostered such agency.

Alan j Wright

Education Consultant, Writer, Poet

https://www.alanjwrightauthorpoet.com/




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