Real Life: Stranger Than Fiction

Essential Understandings

Identify and describe what specific textual details reveal about a character, that character’s perspective, and that character’s motives.
Identify and explain the function of point of view in a narrative.
Explain how a character’s own choices, actions, and speech reveal complexities in that character, and explain the function of those complexities.

Reading Memoirs

Independent Reading: Choose two memoirs from our book list

*Get approval from Mrs. Schulz if the memoir you want to read is not on this list.

Assignment Due October 3

Part 1 (do this assignment for one of your books) - Reader Response Journal: Your reader response journal must have FIVE entries. Each entry should include a quote from the book and a 300-word response (the quote doesn't count towards the 300 words). In your responses you will make one thematic connection and one personal connection.

Format:

Quote
Thematic connection (What is a theme in the book and how does the quote you selected connect to that theme?)
Personal connection

Part 2 (do this assignment for the other book) - Book Trailer

Create a book trailer. I recommend reading the same book as one or two other people in class so you can do the book trailer together as a pair or small group. More info will be posted shortly.

Part 3 (you will choose which book to write your essay for once you see the prompt) - Essay: This will be done in class one day the week after October 6

Nonfiction Book List

Reading Selections:

Once More to the Lake - E.B. White
Fish Cheeks - Amy Tan
from Solito - Javier Zamora
from Crying in H Mart - Michelle Zauner
from Men We Reaped - Jesmyn Ward
from Born a Crime - Trevor Noah
The Moth - Ishmael Beah
My Family's Slave - Alex Tizon

Example Annotations - "Once More to the Lake"

Writing Memoirs

When I Was Young in the Mountains

(Mentor Text)

When I Was Young in the Mountains - by Cynthia Rylant

When I Was Young on Holland Street - by Mrs. Schulz

Hands

Read this poem: Hands - by Sarah Kay

Trace your hand and list things you have touched or held that mattered to you.

Mrs. Schulz's Example

Encyclopedia Autobiography

Amy Rosenthal organized her memoir into an encyclopedia of episodic entries to show various details of her life in her novel Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. Here are three random entries from her novel:

Amy Rosenthal

My father-in-law informed me that my married name could produce two anagrams: Hearty Salmon. Nasty Armhole. I cannot tell you how much I love that.

Anxious, Things That Make Me

Vending machines. I have to double-, triple-check. Okay it’s A5 for the Bugles, right? Is that right? A5? I don’t want to read the codes wrong and end up with Flaming Hot Cheetos. But then, what a relief when the Bugles come tumbling down. Yes! I knew it was A5!

Birthmark

I have a birthmark on my left arm. As a child I thought it looked like a bear, or Africa, depending on the angle. I would often draw and eye and a mouth on it; sometimes I would allow a friend to do so. To look at my birthmark was to remind myself that I am me.

Assignment

Use Rosenthal’s book as a model and write 7 encyclopedia entries that are autobiographical in nature. At least 4 entries should be longer than 100 words (3 entries may be under 100 words). You may also look at my example encyclopedia entries on our class website to get ideas.

My Encyc Assign Example.docx

Photo Autobiography

Create a 3 page autobiography using words, photos, and drawings. Each page must have one photo that drives the words and drawings on the page. The photo should propel the story. You can write one solid page that is unified in its telling of the story associated with the photo, or you can write several segments that are related to the photo in some way. For example, if the photo is of you and your mother, you could write one segment about the situation happening when the photo was taken, one segment about memories you have with your mother, and one segment about lessons you've learned from your mother. You can write lists. You can write sideways or curved. You can write in different colors. The only thing you must do is HANDWRITE on the page around the photo and drawings.

Penny 2.pdf

Penny 3.pdf

Building Empathy Through Storytelling

There is power in helping others tell their own stories and in using the stories of others to build empathy.

Building Empathy Through Storytelling

Assignment

Interview someone who lives or works in the 93706 or 93721 zip code and take their photo. Make sure your photo is clear. See HONY for options of taking photos of people.
Upload the photo and a caption of 50-200 words onto Teams. Follow the HONY style of captioning. It should read like a very brief story that provides a glimpse into the life of the person you interviewed.
Only students who select one of the colored papers can interview a student who attends Edison HS.
Give the info sheet to the person you interview so they have information about our project. Participants have to consent to their photo being used.

Humans of Southwest Fresno

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