Drawing of a cartoon sun with a smiling face.Non-Fiction Writing

Goals

  • review the genre of nonfiction writing using a personal memoir
  • read an example of a personal memoir and identify characteristics

The Learning Task

Last week our literacy prompts focused on generating our personal writing territoires* or ideas that we can return to for writing inspiration (heart maps, hands, life map, awesome ideas) .

This week we will explore different genres of writing beginning with nonfiction. Genre is the form that a piece of writing takes. Each form of writing has its own unique characteristics or traits.

All writing that is not poetry is prose. Prose is writing that is made of sentences and paragraphs. And poetry is made up of lines and stanzas.

Non-fiction writing provides factual information about a subject; often uses exposition but may include narration, description, or persuasion.

A personal memoir is one form of nonfiction writing: Read about the characteristics of a personal memoir.

Here is an example of a personal memoir. Read the personal memoir and identify the unique characteristics of the genre: Everything I Ever Learned I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum.

What is an idea from your writing territoires that you may want to develop into a personal memoir?

*term coined by Nancie Atwell

Daily task! Don’t forget to engage with your Writer’s Notebook: Creating a Place for Reflection

Note: please see the information in this lesson for guidance.