Here's a thoughtful idea from a fellow teacher:

Sparking a Memoir by Comparing Now to Then

This review/activity was generously shared with us by NNWP Teacher Consultant Corbett Harrison during an NNWP-sponsored inservice class on narrative and memoir.

There are many marvelous "mentor texts" that can be used when teaching a unit on narrative or memoir. The review of the book, When I Was Little, by Jamie Lee Curtis and the activity on this page were written by a Nevada teacher during an in-service class for teachers sponsored by the Northern Nevada Writing Project.

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Washoe County teachers, click here to search for this title at the county library.

A Review of this Book & an Activity Suggestion:

In her picture book When I Was Little: A four-Year-Old’s Memoir of Her Youth, author Jamie Lee Curtis compares and contrasts the worldly experiences of a modern four-year-old to the time that the same four-year old was a baby. Each page begins with the words, “When I was little…” and most pages attempt to explain how things are different now that the main character is terribly older, though not all pages do; it’s a nice example of a pattern that doesn’t perfectly follow itself, which I think is good for kids to see. The word choice (especially the adjectives and verbs) in this book can be celebrated with students as they think about writing their own memories of how it used to be to how it is now.

After sharing this picture book, I use its frame as a brainstorming tool to have my writers think about a time from their past to and connect it to the present. I ask my writers to come up with three or four examples of interesting thoughts about how it used to be to how it is now that they’re older. I then have students pick one of their ideas and expand it into a longer story, one that is full of details and voice.

Frame worksheet:

Looking for complete writing lessons based on picture books? Have you seen WritingFix's Picture Books as Mentor Texts Collection?

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