As many new classes are being introduced into next year’s curriculum, English teacher Deborah Saltzman is excited to announce the debut of her new and unique Reading and Writing Memoirs class.
The class will be based upon the genre of memoirs, which will open a fresh perspective to viewing literature through firsthand accounts.
“We will be reading published memoirs, both historical and contemporary,” Saltzman explained.
There will be special emphasis on connections between the memoirs that the class will read.
“There’s this very interesting parallel between the old memoirs and the new ones…I think it would be so interesting to read those together and just see how things are still the same, but how things are also different,” Saltzman said.
The memoirs that the class will read are diverse, with sub-genres ranging from journals about travels to the experiences of immigrants when they come to a new country, and even women’s accounts of life in captivity.
“Students can really focus on their own interests and there will be opportunity to do some free choice reading,” Saltzman explained.
The new English elective will not only offer a chance to read memoirs, but to also create your own.
“We’re going to be using the contemporary memoirs to inspire ourselves to write our own narratives. We won’t be writing these linear chronological memoirs…We’re going to be using little prompts,” Saltzman said.
Students will be able to write their own mini memoirs by taking pieces of their own lives to respond to memory-provoking prompts.
“We will be compiling a number of these little vignettes into a collection, and that will be the final writing project for the class..and that will be our memoir,” Saltzman explained.
When asked what she was most excited about in the class Saltzman said, “I love the idea of kids having the opportunity to write about their own lives. They remember little details of it, turn it into a finished product, and have something that they’re really proud of.”