Memoir Reading
Responses to memoir book
Track reading through:
Timeline of events: Create a timeline of the memoir you are reading. Include all of the important events covered in the book. Please cite these events by the chapter or pages they are covered in. The timeline should be chronological, of course, but should not include sections of the subject’s life that are not directly presented in the book. You can use this site to create your own digital timeline, or you can create one on paper (I have longer 11x17 paper available for this timeline, if needed.)
Quotations log: As you read, keep a log of favorite quotes and passages from the book. These are to be marked/recorded, and then you should record your thoughts and reactions of joy, amusement, agreement, disagreement, disappointment, understanding, compassion, sadness, etc…. Additionally, analyze these lines for the author’s effective use of figurative language, syntax choices, diction choices, details, imagery, etc. Record these lines and your reactions next to one another. You can type these reactions into a Pages document, or handwrite them in your notebook.
Response 1: Deciphering the Text
In a 1984 interview in The Paris Review, Elie Wiesel stated, “A writer must first know how to read. You can see whether a person is a writer by the way he reads a text, by the way he deciphers a text.”
Explain what you have done, thus far, to “decipher” the book you are reading. Examine what aspects you have needed to further inform yourself about in order to accurately interpret this memoir. What context information is necessary for interpretation of this memoir? What are some beliefs and principles that this person holds dear that make a difference in a reader’s perspective and interpretation of the memoir?
Finally, reflect on a few ways that you see this writer using techniques that could inform your own writing approach. Set a few goals for using these techniques, and mark a few specific places in the text where a model of this technique is used.
Response 2: People of Significance
Analyze the way the author of your memoir presents one of the other people in the memoir. Identify several telling details, a few bits of dialogue or actions that reveal important traits of this person’s character. Support your observations with at least two quotations from the reading.
How might you use these detailing techniques in your own writing?
Response 3: Memoir as Self-Inquiry Writing
How is the author attempting to discover who he/she is or to understand his or her past? What central question is the author trying to answer? Identify instances in your reading in which the author is engaging in this type of self-inquiry. Support your claim with evidence from the book and explain how the author is doing this.
Look back over the independent writings you have been working on. Consider why you have chosen these subjects.
Response 4: Storyteller, Teacher, Enchanter, Artist
In the concluding three paragraphs of his “Good Readers and Good Writers” lecture from 1948, Vladimir Nabokov refers to the truly gifted writer as one who can be described as all of the beings listed above.
Consider how your author is “weaving this tale” for the audience. Discuss the specific aspects of description and imagery, sentence construction and word choice, tone and arrangement, that distinguish his/her style and make it stand out.
Next, describe how he/she has chosen to pace and arrange the details of the memoir.
Finally, discuss the way that these aspects come together to make an overall impression of this author’s style and solidify your perspective of his/her mastery of the craft of writing.
Look back over the independent writings you have been working on. Consider which title (storyteller, teacher, enchanter, artist) fits you best as a writer, and which one you are still working to become or improve upon.
Response 5: Point of View and Exigence...
Consider the point of view from which you have read this memoir, and the other important people in the memoir. Could anyone else have told this story, or is this story “owned” solely by your author? In what ways would your perspective of these events have been altered if told through another person’s viewpoint?
Why do you believe this story was one that your author felt the need to tell? What drew him/her to this subject and how has his/her life been affected by the events of this memoir?
Reviewing your independent writings, who do you notice is/are the people who share your story? Do you think they saw or experienced the events similarly?
BOOK SHARING DISCUSSIONS
Students will share about their books with one another through a series of three book talks.
2. “Snapshot” book talk with time to read from books to one another-- What specific part (“snapshot”) of his/her story do you think you will remember long past this reading? Why will this part stick with you? What qualities of his/her writing style (diction, details, imagery, figurative language, syntax, etc.) stand out to you from this section of the book?--nominate a “snapshot” you appreciated deeply at the end of this discussion
3. Audience-to-Writer connections-- In what ways did this author influence your views of the world/humanity?