Arnberg Article April 5, 2009

This article was exciting to me because the author is a practicing classroom teacher.  I think that it would be possible for me to do just what she is in facilitating meaningful instruction in memoir writing for my students.  I appreciated that at the beginning of her study of memoir, she had students bring in books that they thought were memoirs.  Arnberg used exploration and childrens literature to develop a definition of memoir that would be salient and meaningful to her students because they played a part in developing it.  I didn’t really understand that memoir was different from autobiography until I read her article.  I now know that a memoir does not tell the entire life story of the subject.  It is not a “bed to bed” story.  It can be about a small moment, a summer, a vacation, a Saturday afternoon.  Arnberg’s record of her reluctant writers triumphing over their weaknesses was so special.  I am excited to learn more about memoir and perhaps include memoir study in my own writing curriculum.

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