The Memoir Unit

I tell you, I'm about thisclose to taking a sledgehammer to my modem. This is day two of its randomly deciding to stop working until I turn it off for a minimum of four hours. *snarl, growl, mutter, snap, etc.*

Anyway, on to the post at hand.

I mentioned at the start of the semester the fact that I'm not terribly comfortable discussing my pedagogical viewpoints in the language of academic discourse. Now that I've had a good, solid semester to practice, stumble, and occasionally triumph, I can honestly say that... I'm still not terribly comfortable discussing my pedagogy in academic discourse. I still feel a little like I'm trying to speak fluent Latin with only two semesters of grammar under my belt. Still, I guess I'll keep trying.

Lee asked me, in a comment, how my students reacted to the sample memoirs I produced. One particular advantage to having seven years of memoir-writing to convey to my students is the fact that I've written in nearly every non-fiction genre available, from sob-story to humor to travel-writing. I also have about every level of quality that I've ever written, from "how on God's beautiful green earth did I find the nerve to turn in this crap?" to my "masterpieces." In fact, the majority of the rough drafts I received back from my students surpass many of my sample writings from the early days... and then some! I found myself laughing with delight at how much most of my students embraced their creations.

One thing I made clear from the start, in no uncertain terms, was that I wasn't showing the pieces to them out of vanity or conceit (though, being a bit of artist, there may have been a little bit of that mixed in there, but very little, I hope!), but simply to help them brainstorm and get an idea of the vast array of creative writing that is available, just within the creative non-fiction section of writing. The one fear I had, that my students might feel the need to copy my style, turned out to be completely unfounded. I read my students' voices in their stories. Everything sounded like them... just more polished up. I've got a lot of talented students!

Come to think of it, I think this is a part of my own pedagogy. No matter what, I find myself personally divested in my students. My pedagogy has somewhat morphed into more of the writing center philosophy. I love the idea of working with my students one-on-one to brainstorm and create. When I see them taking my suggestions and molding them to their styles, I get downright giddy. I think that's why I love the creative units of the composition class (besides the fact that creative non-fiction is my specialty); when I see them get excited, that's when I finally feel like I know what I'm doing. They're finally interested in their work more than their grade. And funnily enough, that's when they get the best grades, because that's when they create the best work.

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