5.7 Studying and Planning Structures

CONNECTION “Today is the first day of the rest of your lives.” The choices you make today define the rest of your life. This is true in writing too. The choice of structure that you make dictates the rest of your piece.

TEACHING POINT Today I want to teach you that writers study the structures of other writers to help them choose the type of structure they want to use.

TEACHING When you fly in a plane and look out, you get a different perspective on how things fit together. You see how the farm is organized in a grid or the city streets lay out in a pattern. When a writer wants to study another author’s structure, they read those texts as if flying above, looking down. Don’t pay attention to specific details or word choice. Look for chunks of text to see how it is organized and how the chunks fit together.

TEACHING Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster He remembers that he gave himself a new name, John because all cowboys were named John, and that each time his mother addressed him by his real name he would refuse to answer her. He remembers running out of the house and lying in the middle of the road with his eyes shut, waiting for a car to run him over. He remembers that his Grandfather gave him a large photograph of Gabby Hayes and that it sat in a place of honor on the top of his bureau. He remembers thinking the world was flat. He remembers learning how to tie his shoes. He remembers that his father’s clothes were kept in the closet in his room and that the noise of the hangers clicking together in the morning would wake him up.

TEACHING Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster He remembers that he gave himself a new name, John because all cowboys were named John, and that each time his mother addressed him by his real name he would refuse to answer her. He remembers running out of the house and lying in the middle of the road with his eyes shut, waiting for a car to run him over. He remembers that his Grandfather gave him a large photograph of Gabby Hayes and that it sat in a place of honor on the top of his bureau. He remembers thinking the world was flat. He remembers learning how to tie his shoes. He remembers that his father’s clothes were kept in the closet in his room and that the noise of the hangers clicking together in the morning would wake him up. Organized like a list Sequence of memories seems random but is connected with line “He remembers…” Are lines the same length?

ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT Look for two or three major chunks of text. Laughter Nenny and I don’t look like sisters…not right away. Not the way you can tell with Rachel and Lucy who have the same fat Popsicle lips like everyone else in their family. But me and Nenny, we are more alike than you would know. Our laughter, for example. Not the shy ice cream bells’ giggle of Rachel and Lucy’s family, but all of a sudden and surprised like a pile of dishes breaking. And other things I can’t explain. One day we were passing a house that looked, in my mind, like the houses I had seen in Mexico. I don’t know why. There was nothing about the house that looked exactly like the houses I remembered. I’m not even sure why I thought it, but it seemed to feel right. Look at that house, I said. It looks like Mexico. Rachel and Lucy look at me like I’m crazy, but before they can let out a laugh, Nenny says: Yes, that’s Mexico all right. That’s what I was thinking exactly. Look for two or three major chunks of text. Ask, “What kind of text is this section?

LINK You will need to have written your memoir revised it, and edited it by about the end of this week. Plan the work that you still need to do. Read and reread memoirs to consider alternate ways to structure your draft Gather more material to advance your theme before you can draft THINK ABOUT HOW YOU WILL STRUCTURE YOUR MEMOIR Claim, thesis, parts of the essay showing reasons or examples Collection of tiny scenes like Cynthia Rylant’s When I Was Young in the Mountains One story with a little essay, like Eleven

WAYS TO STRUCTURE A MEMOIR… MIDWORKSHOP WAYS TO STRUCTURE A MEMOIR… Write in a list-like structure, like beads on a string. The beads can be Small Moment stories that are linked (Example: times when a writer was shy, or scenes from my childhood alongside the creek). Each memory can be as short as a sentence or two or as long as a page or two. A hybrid text that is a mixture of idea-based writing and a story or vignette. An essay in which the writer makes a claim and supports it with reasons.

SHARE Memoirs draw on both narrative and opinion, so what is our writing checklist??? We will take both checklists and make our own. Let’s start with the Overall category. What do we think?

SHARE Memoirs draw on both narrative and opinion, so what is our writing checklist??? We will take both checklists and make our own. Let’s start with the Overall category. What do we think? I WROTE AN IDEA ABOUT MY LIFE AND WROTE THE STORY OF ONE OR MORE TIMES TO SHOW HOW THAT IDEA IS TRUE