How'd he do that? Comparing Written Memoir to Graphic Memoir

My teaching partner and I traded some time today so that we can dive into the written memoirs and move ahead with the writing portion of this unit. As it is a shortened schedule on Wednesdays, having the whole block means I have about 60 minutes of class time to work with.

We will start class with our ten minutes of reading and then dive right into memoir study.

As we have spent the past two weeks reading Persepolis, which is a graphic memoir, I think it is important for the students to spend some time with written memoir so they can see what the similarities and differences are as they prepare to write their own memoirs in future lessons.

I will start this lesson by having them brainstorm elements of memoir and writing terms on the board that are important to take note of (L.9-10.6).

The terms/ideas I am most concerned with are:

• Memoir Structure
• Dichotomy
• Characterization
• Narrative Structure
• Imagery

The students have had a lot of exposure to these ideas as we've read and discussed Persepolis, so hopefully they will be able to make the transfer and speak with some expertise about how authors use these techniques in written memoir as well. 

I will ask the students to return to their initial notes on memoir from the beginning of class and reflect on what Sedaris was doing that they'd like to try in their own writing.