Marley and Us

Marley and us. It's a match made in Heaven. Fourth graders love to read animal stories. They love to talk about them, and they usually can make pretty good connections. Most of my students have pets, but if they don't, they usually have a relative or a neighbor who does. Life experience is everything when it comes to writing.

We are two days into our memoir "work." So far, the work has been about getting comfortable with the genre.  Yesterday and today were immersion days. What I mean is that we are immersing ourselves in a the mentor text. I am reading the book aloud, but the kids are becoming completely engrossed in the story. 

Yesterday we talked about how carefully the author will choose which episodes he will tell. Each episode is there for a reason - it builds the theme and the thesis the author has in his mind. Nothing is accidental in a memoir. Each episode is a piece of the puzzle.

Today we began discussing what type of person -what character traits - the author seems to possess. We also discussed Marley's character (or lack of it!). Tomorrow we may begin jotting notes after we read a portion. A simple graphic organizer will suffice here. Taking notes as we go will help the students recall specific parts of the story. Later we can go back and determine the author's motives for writing it in a particular fashion.

Just to change it up, some days we will discuss more general aspects of writing -- the descriptive language of the text, how the author adds humor to the story. The story is very funny, but being Marley's owner is no cake walk. I like the kids to get a real grasp on this concept. In a few days, we will also begin coming up with ideas for our own memoirs. I like to wait until we are about one week into this book so that my friends are truly feeling like they are confident. 

In the meantime, I will also pull a few more memoirs out for the kids to have a look at. Some are real memoirs; others, such as Kermit the Frog's memoirs called Before You Leap: A Frog's Eye View of Life's Greatest Lessons.

Marvelous memoirs

At this point in the year, my students always begin writing their memoir.  It's time to start reflecting on our school year, on our work as writers and on our lives. You'd be surprised how reflective a 10 year-old can be. And how wise.

We always connect our work to a mentor text. Writing memoirs is not different. Together we read the book, Marley & Me,  by John Grogan, which is mostly funny, but has bittersweet moments. (We read the children's version - Marley & Me, A Dog Like No Other, it's shorter, geared to children). The combination entertains the  kids, but gets them thinking about the bigger picture in life.

A memoir is the story of one's life, but slanted to tell a specific tale. It isn't a chronological list of events. Rather it's choosing which events you share, based on the message you want to send your readers. We all have many facets to our life. I'm a wife, mother, daughter and sister -- the events I write about are different depending on the part of my life I choose to focus on. 

For the first few days, probably all this coming week, we'll read a couple chapters a day, "donating" a good chunk of our writing time to reading Marley. We need to get a head start before they start penning their memoirs. Sometimes the work of writing is reading, almost like we are researching. Sometimes our work in writing is thinking. We can't just spew words on a page. There is a good bit to be done before we start.

So tomorrow, off we go to write about our lives...