"Memoir Night"

"I hoped that the trip would be the best of all journeys; a journey into themselves" ~ S. MacLain

Over the course of the school year, my Honors students work on a memoir project; it's one of the focuses in my class. We read three powerful ones: "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier", "Persepolis" and "Night." I find that some of the most powerful and touching words are the ones written by truth and experience. Anyhow, the memoir project requires students to write about events in their lives, just like the memoirs they've read in class. They write 3 typed pages a month for 8 months. We continuously work on these 8 "chapters" to refine the writing, emotion, description, etc. so that ultimately, when the chapter is done, it's like reading a present day "Snapshot" of that personal event. By May, the students have at least 24 pages of history and memorable experiences which they then publish, including a title page, table of contents, prologue and epilogue. They also work on an interdisciplinary portion where they express their memoir in some other form, be it a soundtrack, scrapbook, comic strip, paintings, etc.
Once the memoir is finished, we culminate the project by having a "Memoir Night". Invitations are sent out, parents are invited and the students prepare one (usually their best) "chapter" to present. One of the student's families will host the event and the entire Honors class along with the parents have dinner and then listen to the students read a portion of their memoir. (Kind of like a poetry reading, but with memoirs instead). It always turns out to be an awesome experience that both the students and especially the parents enjoy.
Last night, we had our Memoir Night for the year and it was just amazing. The talent and maturity that these kids have just blows my mind. We laughed and cried, we learned and were thoughtful, and by the end of the night we all felt like we understood each other a little bit better. Parents learned knew things about their children and children learned that they really did love their parents. One of my students summed up the experience by simply stating the following: "Mrs. D, I loved this project because it made me look at myself, the good and bad and I found that I was able to learn more about who I really am. Who knew I would learn about the best things in life...from myself." ~ This is why I love being a teacher.

The entire Honors class.

A few of my leading ladies.