Creative Writing - Nonfiction (Mini-Memoir)

Have you ever dreamed about being a published author? Have you wondered what it takes to write a memoir or did you ever think to yourself that your life would make a great novel? This class is for you!! Or maybe you just need to fill a graduation requirement? That's fine too!! This will be one of the funnest and most creative way you will have ever written!

Memory is a way of holding on to things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose -Kevin Arnold. 

In this class, you will be going down memory lane and you will be writing about both good memories that you never want to forget and bad or distasteful memories that you wish you have never experienced. A memoir encapsulates our entire life. In your case, the first 16-18 years of your life. We will dig deep, and get creative. Using childhood memories, home photos and family tales, you will learn how to be honest and raw in your writing while writing creatively. Here is an example from my own unfinished memoir. In this passage, the words are facts. They are honest yet detailed, which creates the creativity aspect. 
"I was dripping blood. By now, everything I stepped on, everything I touched had a trace of blood. Who knew I would bleed so much. Oh my God, I kept thinking. Just, Ya Allah!! He helped me get to the shower. I take off my clothes one by one. It hurt so much as I leaned down to take my pants off, my underpants. It hurt so much, it was a physical pain that I have never experienced in my life. Like a sharp knife stabbing me as I am trying to just move normally. A jab into my stomach, a jab into my abdomen, a jab into my uterus. Just jabs and stabbings into my soul, into my heart. I felt like I was dying, my body and soul just could not make a connection". -Ahlaam H. 

In this class, you will write a mini-memoir. The class will be divided into four sections and each section will focus on one detail. There will be a weekly assignment and one final big assignment for the final week. By the last day of class, you will have written your mini-memoir. I am so excited and cannot wait to read everyone's life story up to this point. I will emphasize that this is a "mini-memoir", which means I do not expect to read about every single part of your life. You are welcome to write more words than the assignment indicates but it is definitely not expected. Topics discussed and taught will be as follows:  These are examples of what each week will look like. These might or might not be in your weekly lessons and assignments.

Week One: All about me. Who am I? Digging deep into our minds and hearts and discovering who we truly are rather than who we think we are and/or how others view us. We will be getting personal here. We will focus on the unique facts of your life. The experiences that you think not many have experienced. I invite you to get personal with me and share your inner thoughts in your writing. As your teacher, I will promise to keep your work private and I will not share it with classmates or anyone else unless I am given your permission. How will we interact this week? You will be asked to submit a personal photo that should inspire/guide  you when writing your memoir. Secondly, each student will submit an introduction video of themselves. details are below and will be explained further upon enrollment.  Finally, I will submit either audio files or actual texts of memoirs and we will discuss them.
(By the end of this week, students should have an idea of what they want to write about and they need to submit their ideas to me personally and I will give feedback)

Week Two: We will get even more personal in week two and this is when you will write about your family. Who were your parents? Do you like them? Are they your role models? Challenges you faced growing up. What did you inherit from your mom or your dad? Both tangible things and personal characteristics. What skills do your parents have? Do you wish to be like them? What do you wish your parents taught you as a kid? Who are your grandparents? You might need to do some research in order to learn about your families. Who are your siblings, if you have any? Do you get along? Aunts, uncles, and family members worth mentioning, ones that have impacted your life. How will we interact this week? I will create office hours in hopes of being able to do a live meeting with all of my students. I understand we may not all be in the same time zone so this will be worked out via communication upon enrollment. A live meeting during my office hours will NOT be required but extra points will be given for all students who put in the effort in trying to meet during office hours . During my office hours, we will brainstorm ideas and speak about life events that we think will be good in a memoir. The following will be another way we will keep our classroom interactive. We will play a game in our classroom that will help students get creative and raw. This game will be a back and fourth in our classroom; students are expected to check in everyday into the classroom and to keep the interaction going. 
(By the end of this week, students are expected to have written at least four pages and they must submit their work to me. Work will not be scored at all. The point is to make sure all students are staying on track)

Week Three: This week will be all about you and your relationships. You will think about questions like, have you ever been cheated by a family member or someone you love? have you ever been in love? was it real? Have you ever betrayed someone? Relationships you have lost through a divorce, death, or other circumstances and how did you deal with those losses? How will we interact in this class? First, we will play a game of the same, same, different. In this game, each student will compare three non-fictions peices. Two that are the same and one that is different, (two memoirs that focus on childhood abuse, and one that is about someone's life while traveling around the world). We will discuss the tone in the words chosen in these stories and compare and it will help students decide what tone they want their memoir to have. Secondly, each student will submit another photo that inspired them (any photo whatsoever) and finally, each student will submit two paragraphs from their work to show us their progress. 
(By the end of this week, students are expected to have written at least Six pages and they must submit their work to me. Work will not be scored at all. The point is to make sure all students are staying on track. I may or may not edit students work)

Week Four: This final week will be spent with submissions back and forth. You will use this week to piece your story together. Add anything that you think is missing in your story. Finalize your previous writing and edit edit and edit . There will be no new assignments for this week. It will be all revisions and finalizing your work. Our second live interaction will be this week. we will communicate as a class in our classroom and try to meet during my office hours once again and the same rules apply. It will not be mandatory but extra points will be given if met.  In this meeting, every student will share a text from their memoir. We will discuss what worked in this class for you and what you most struggled with. It will be like an exit interview. 
Final memoirs will be due on the last day of class. The final memoir should be at least Ten pages. 

This class will be taught through files, videos, games and two live office hours meets(during office hours). I will have an introduction video to introduce myself and to get you excited for this class. This class will have plenty of interaction opportunities. The first form of interaction will be for each student to submit an introduction video of themselves. In this video, your classmates and I will need to have learned three personal things about you( Examples: where your from, a hobby, and an idea or topic that you know you want to include in your mini-memoir). I will be checking our classroom daily and I expect to see my students reading each others work and commenting on it. I will have a submission THREE times a week and each of these submissions will be a way that we will interact with each other. For example, for the first week, I will make mentor texts that I will make available to you (texts from memoirs). The purpose would be for you to see what a memoir is and what it looks like. I expect each student to give thoughtful comments on these texts. The second submission is when I will ask everyone to talk about their favorite non-fiction book and if they do not have one, to research memoirs and find a book that is appealing and to tell us why. The third submission will be for each student to submit a picture from their life that has meaning to them and to explain why it's meaningful. Each student's response to these submissions will need to be at least 500 words. 
Responses to your peers work need  to be at least 200 words. I will also be expecting each student to show that they have read their classmate's work and to be able to give feedback. With that said, there will be public classroom submissions as well as assignment submissions to me(which only I am able to read). I also will be available for feedback at any point during the week. My email address will be provided during enrollment and you're free to send me messages about our class. Every assignment will be graded with a 1-10 scale. 1 would be not putting enough effort into the assignment, and the assignment is not accepted.  5 would mean that you are putting some effort into the assignments and you either need help or you don't really care for the assignment. 10 would be the ideal score, it would mean that you are putting in all of the efforts and respecting our time and commitment to this class. I would like to mention that this class is a creative writing class so I do not like to score your creativity. As long as I feel that my students are putting in the effort and are doing their best, I will not score you poorly. Additionally, I will not focus on grammar and punctuation in your writing. That is not a focus in this class. Although, I do expect grade-level grammar!