Chronicles of Our Character
In an 11th grade ELA class, students explored what it means to chronicle - to chronicle their emotions, their experience and their story. They did so in the form of a Character Memoir. This memoir project was not chronological, nor was it exactly literal. Instead it was a collage of poetry and stories that expressed their connection to their values, their opinions, their choices and their dreams. In order to build their academic skills, students were asked to experiment with various writing techniques (including free-writing and template work) with a focus on the application of different poetic genres, the incorporation of symbolism and honing their fluency in not only verbal but visual literacy. Through the cataloguing of the experiences that have shaped their character, the vision they have of the person that they would like to become, and the legacy they would like to leave behind, students gained a stronger desire to develop the positive traits that will afford them authorship over the continuing story of the development of their character.