Writing Strategy that Worked: Autobiographies

In the summer of 2009 I worked at an inner-city ministry where I ran a summer program  for middle school students.  During the summer program the students read Left To Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza which is an account of a woman's experience in Rwanda during the 1993 genocide.  During the time the students were in the program they pre-wrote, wrote and edited their autobiography.  We began by brainstorming about their lives and they wrote down ten things that they thought were important in thier lives and arranged them in chronological order.  Then they took those things and created an essay with an introduction, body and conclusion.  Then the students proofread their work. Because some of the stories were personal, I and my fellow staff members edited some of their  papers with them instead of having the other students do it.

      My reason for having these students do this assignment was that I wanted them to be able to tell their story, even if no one else was going to read it.  For some of the students this was a real emotional outlet that allowed them to face some of the tragic and heartbreaking events that they had experienced in their lives.
     
      I  learned from this experience that students are extremely eager to tell their story to someone, even if it is just to a piece of paper.  Biographies are a great way to have students express themselves in a very personal way.  I felt that it was important to allow students to skip the peer editing part of this assignment if they wanted to.  These stories were very personal and I respected these students very much for being willing to share with  my co-workers and I. I love having a copy of all of these stories to remind me of these special students. 

Following the assignment I encouraged the students to keep telling the story of their lives through writing.  I think that journaling is highly effectve in building writing skills. Journaling is what I recommended to the students to move on to next.  Just to write down thoughts or feelings about significant moments in life is a wonderful way to measure your growth as a person.