English IV – NPR: 6 Word Memoirs

Agenda:
- What is a memoir?
- Ernest Hemingway challenged!
- NPR (National Public Radio)
o Example 6 word memoirs from NPR
o Clip about 6 word memoir book
- Starting your 6 word memoir – pre-write
o Time line
o Bullet points
o Summary
o Big events – happy, sad, or otherwise

Objective for lesson:

Evidence:

Do Now: What is a memoir? Come up with the best definition possible for memoir –
even if you’re not sure, give it your best guess.

Memoir: A record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and
based on personal observation. Less focused on author’s personal life, more concerned
with people and events witnessed.

Explanation: The first novel that we’ll read is called A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a
Boy Soldier. It’s about a boy who gets pulled into the fighting in West Africa. He starts
as a normal kid and then suddenly his town is attacked and his whole life changes. It
becomes a kill or be killed situation for him and he’s forced to do a lot of things he
wouldn’t normally due.

In preparation for Ishmael Beah’s memoir, I want to tell you about this idea called the
six-word memoir. It is exactly like it sounds, in six words, write your life story. There is a
published book with hundreds of them from famous and unknown people. How this
idea came to be was through Ernest Hemingway. Legend has it that Hemingway was
challenged to write a story in six words. He came up with “for sale: baby shoes, never
worn.” So an online magazine decided they wanted to hear from people. Tell me your
own story in six words. That’s how six-word memoirs started.

We’re going to look at a few and then listen to NPR discuss the memoirs.

Now you are going to brainstorm your own six-word memoir. I would suggest using any
of these strategies to start out before you try to limit yourself to six words: timeline,
bullet points, summary, big events – happy, sad, or other. Sometimes the hardest thing
to do is be concise, or brief. I’m sure at some point in your high school career most
people have gotten an essay back where the teacher tells you this part is too wordy.

Try out different things for your memoir. Come up with different ones to give yourself
options.

Application:

Synthesis:

Homework:
6-word memoir due at the start of class on Friday. Everyone will be presenting their
memoir to the class.