1. Analysis of Mentor Texts
The Memoir
Analysis of Mentor Texts

2. Share your writing from yesterday with a partner
Share your writing from yesterday with a partner. Discuss each passage, what you find interesting, and why the passage is important to you.
Record the meaning of your passage in your notebook. Look for the following ideas:
What does this event make you realize about yourself?
How does the event help to make you who you are?
How does this event change your view of the world that you live in and your role in it?

3. Tools of a Memoirist
On a new sheet of paper in your writer’s notebook, label the top line “Tools of a Memoirist” and put the date in the corner.

4. Teaching Point:
Memoirists use a variety of tools to structure a memoir and create truth. Today, we learn what tools are essential for a good memoir and look at an example of a memoir together to identify these tools.

5. Memoirs: are told in first person center around one experience
use sensory imagery and descriptive details to recreate the experience
include dialogue
Include internal thoughts
based on TRUTH
focus on the EXPERIENCE more than the event
share a personal truth or reflection

6. What makes a good memoir?
Truth
Read the article “How to Write a Good Memoir.” Then, answer the questions in your writer’s notebook. Answers must be at least a paragraph each.

7. Entry #2
Begin on the next clean page you have available in your Writer’s Notebook and write the date.
Label the entry “Entry # 2” on the top line.
You must write at least ¾ of a page to get credit (1 full page if you have the little composition notebooks). Try to write the entire time and keep your pen moving. Ideas will come if you keep babbling.
It is OK to wander and let your ideas flow naturally. You may start on one thread and end up somewhere completely different.
Begin with one of the prompts below or choose your own prompt.
Prompts:
Family Lesson: What did you learn from your father (or mother or grandparent–pick a relative)? Remember that not all lessons are positive, and some are learned by example not instruction.
Music: Write about a song that captures an emotion. Is there a song that when you hear it makes you immediately angry, happy, sad? Is there a song that always takes you back to a certain time in your life? Write about that song or that album. What does it remind you of? Describe your feelings and/or memories around that song. Describe your emotions. Why do you think you feel so strongly about THIS song? What does you feeling about this song say about you?

8. Day Two: Teaching Point
Memoirists use a variety of tools to structure a memoir and create truth. Yesterday, we learned about the tools. Today, we will take a look at more examples of how these tools are used so that we can recognize them.

9. Introduction to Memoir: Mentor Text
Directions: Read the memoir “Fish Cheeks” with a partner. Then answer the following questions in your Writer’s Notebook. Label this entry “Fish Cheeks” Analysis
What do you think the author’s overall meaning or takeaway is from this? What does s/he realize about herself, her life, her family, the world? How was this seemingly insignificant event important to her discovering who she is?
How does the author express this message? How is she able to get it across without coming right out and saying it? (List and explain specific events and how they develop this meaning.)
What is the overall feeling or tone that this memoir gives the reader? How does the author express this tone?
How does the author draw the reader in, make the memoir interesting, make it relatable? List specific examples.

10. Model Memoir
As we read “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan, we are going to annotate the memoir together, identifying the pieces of a memoir.
Next, we will answer the memoir analysis in our writers’ notebooks.

11. Memoir Analysis Questions:
What is the tone of the memoir? What tools/words/phrases does the author use to set the tone? Explain. (2 examples)
What details and images does the author use to tell the story and make it come alive? (3 examples)
What lines of dialogue impact the story? Why are these lines effective? (2 examples)
Where does the author use internal details? How do these details impact the memoir? (2 examples)
What is the personal truth the author is conveying? What is the meaning the author intends?
How is the memoir honest? What makes it honest?

12. Independent Practice
Read the memoir “Salvation” by Langston Hughes with a partner. As you read, annotate the piece for the parts of a memoir.
Next, answer the memoir analysis questions in your writers’ notebooks. You MUST cite specific lines for each question.

13. Memoir Analysis Questions
What is the tone of the memoir? What tools/words/phrases does the author use to set the tone? Explain. (2 examples)
What details and images does the author use to tell the story and make it come alive? (3 examples)
What lines of dialogue impact the story? Why are these lines effective? (2 examples)
Where does the author use internal details? How do these details impact the memoir? (2 examples)
What is the personal truth the author is conveying? What is the meaning the author intends?
How is the memoir honest? What makes it honest?

14. Day 3: Habits of a Memoirist
Share your writing from yesterday with a partner. Discuss each passage, what you find interesting, and why the passage is important to you. Record the meaning of your passage in your notebook. Look for the following ideas:
What does this event make you realize about yourself?
How does the event help to make you who you are?
How does this event change your view of the world that you live in and your role in it?

15. Mentor Text Analysis #3:
Read the memoir “Right Place, Wrong Face” with a partner. As you read, annotate the piece for the parts of a memoir.
Next, answer the memoir analysis questions in your writers’ notebooks. You MUST cite specific lines for each question.

16. Write #4:
Choose one of the prompts below and write the story in your writer’s notebook. You do not need to know your meaning. Just tell the story!
Write two pages of something you wrote or did that you no longer understand.
Write two pages of what you had to have.

17. Write #5:
Choose one of the prompts below and write the story in your writer’s notebook. You do not need to know your meaning. Just tell the story!
Write two pages about a time when you felt compassion unexpectedly.
Write two pages about a physical characteristic you are proud to have inherited or passed on.