Dive Brief:
- Teaching students about reading and writing memoirs enables them to immerse themselves in other people’s stories and better explain their own — if teachers set the right parameters and avoid certain pitfalls, according to English teachers who have focused on the genre.
- Reading memoirs help students "listen" to the person, educators say. During class assignments on this genre, teachers should enable students to get swept up and enjoy the story without overdoing the analysis, said Rex Ovalle, a teacher at Oak Park River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois, and judge for the Anne Frank Award for Teaching Memoir.
- At the core of a strong memoir-writing assignment is a balance of freedom and thoughtful constraints, ensuring that students know they’re in charge of their stories and shouldn’t cross boundaries into areas of their lives that they would regret sharing, said Jon Mundorf, a teacher at the P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, a public school run by the University of Florida.
Dive Insight:
“It’s easy for memoirs to take on a life of their own,” said Mundorf, an Anne Frank Award recipient. “Memoir is not therapy. Boundaries are a really important part of this. … If we treat memoir like it’s this one-draft emotional release, it loses its instructional power.”
In assigning such pieces, Mundorf encourages students to think about the importance of place and setting, and how it becomes, in a sense, an important character in their story. In addition, students need to be guided through the process of shaping their experiences into a meaningful narrative and not simply recounting events.
“It’s important that we teach kids to be reflective and see the big picture,” he said. “It’s not a quick, ‘Write about a time you did a thing.’”
Ovalle recalls an assignment he gave in which students interviewed one of their parents, as if for a podcast. “It was them telling the story of someone they knew well,” he said, adding, “We all have our own stories. If students can be encouraged to tell their own stories, narrativize their own life, that’s what memoir should be teaching our students.”
Reading other people’s memoirs is worthwhile in itself but also prepares students to write their own, Ovalle said.
“If you’re reading carefully, you’re listening carefully,” he said. “In the past, I’ve done a reflection, digging into a text and pulling in key moments that students said have resonated with them.”
Students then examine why a moment is significant and can make connections to their own lives, strengthening the ability to empathize, Ovalle said.
“Memoir often begins with listening, not writing,” Mundorf said. “When kids hear stories from others, it expands memoir beyond themselves and helps students understand how individual memories can contribute to a broader, shared history.”
When Mundorf’s students read “Rolling Warrior,” by disability rights activist Judy Heumann, they discussed how the book demonstrates voice, representation and the power of telling one’s story. After also listening to stories on NPR’s StoryCorps, “we wove these stories together to help students understand that personal narratives and memoir had the power to change and challenge stereotypes … [and] change how we see each other in the world,” he said.
Although it’s a classic English assignment, formal literary analyses of memoirs are not the best use of the genre, Ovalle said. While one could do a line-by-line discussion and delve into the metaphors of, say, “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah, “We take the life out of the text a little bit,” Mundorf said. And students just want to soak it up, which he sometimes gives class time for them to do.
“It’s not a traditionally structured class, but they’re able to push through this text that is really exciting,” Mundorf said.
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