That's the Plan, Anyway

Today was the first day back at school after over two weeks away, and my students seemed dreamy and out of it. We talked a little about books we'd read and things we'd done over break, and then I gave them a copy of Nancie Atwell's Questions for Memoirists: nineteen questions designed to provoke a list of possible memoir topics. I let them talk about their ideas first, casually sharing anecdotes and details that came to mind as they read over the list. That got them a little more animated, and there was even a bit of a din in the room as they free-associated their way through the list. Then they were to choose memory and do a seven-minute free write on it. No one shared any writing today, but I asked everyone to take it home and spend another ten minutes on it.

This year, I'm trying the "studio workshop approach" to memoir that Kirby and Kirby describe in their book New Directions in Teaching Memoir. I like their construct of writing workshop as a studio classroom where instructors demonstrate techniques and ideas, work on pieces of their own, quietly visit students at work, and offer suggestions. I also like their approach to process, using short exercises to gather material, kind of the way an artist might do studies for a portrait. They call these short writings "explorations" or "spider pieces". They teach their students to examine them for connections, images, and memories that stand out, and then they use some of them as anchors, weaving their memoirs around them.

The Kirbys use models as well, excerpts from published memoirs that illustrate a specific topic or technique, to help students explore them in their own writing and thinking. My plan is to spend the next couple of weeks with the students examining models and working on short little spider pieces, starting with what they wrote today. Once they have a collection of material, we'll work from there to create a finished product.