October 2nd, 2014

Students in Room 14 will be exploring the Personal Memoir genre in their next writing unit. Students will have the opportunity to take their personal experiences and express them in a format of their choosing (e.g., story, picture book, poem, newspaper article, diary entry, etc.). It would be of great benefit to these young writers if their families could take some time at home to reminisce with them  (e.g., family trips, family pets, their first day of school, family get-togethers, etc.) as a way to help them come up with possible topics for their writing.

During this unit, students will be looking at the various features of personal memoirs by deconstructing texts shared in class (e.g. Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, and The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier) as well as looking at the various techniques writers use to hook their readers. Up to this point room 14 students have been practising different techniques to come up with ideas and using the writing process (pre-writing, drafting, editing, revising and publishing) during writing workshop. The Personal Memoir unit will give them the opportunity to use these tools to publish a writing piece that is both authentic and meaningful to them. I’m looking forward to reading what they come up with.

Thank-you for your support,

Mr. D. Panagos