Improving Memoir Drafts

Goal: Adding description to the middle/during part of the moment in your memoir.

Read: 
10 Minutes

Memoir drafts: 

• Most of you have a draft. 
• All of you need more time to develop your draft. 
• But first you need a lesson about slowing down time. 
• Let's read THIS passage of an moment described in detail. 

Step 1: 
Divide your draft into three sections: before / during / after

Step 2: 
Add more details to the middle/during section of your draft.
Suggested things to add include:

• What you were wondering in that moment
• What you thought was going to happen
• What you worried was going to happen
• Something someone (or you) said in that moment
• Sensory details, about what things smelled like or looked like
• The look on someone's face
• Add a simile or a metaphor, or a lot of adjectives 

Need more help? 
Here are a few more examples.

Reminders: 

1. Complete your memoir draft by 7:30 am Friday before school. (I'm looking them over during 1st period.) (If you need more time for your draft let me know that today.)
2. Quiz Friday (tomorrow) about mentor sentences. Can you copy/change a sentence I give you? We learned about this Friday and Monday. Here are some of the slides we learned from. 
3. Keep reading.