Teaching students about reading and writing memoirs enables them to immerse themselves in other people’s stories and better explain their own — if teachers set the right parameters and avoid certain pitfalls, according to English teachers who have focused on studying memoir.

Reading memoirs help students “listen” to the person, educators say. During class assignments on this genre, teachers should enable students to get swept up and enjoy the story without overdoing the analysis, said Rex Ovalle, a teacher at Oak Park River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois, and judge for the Anne Frank Award for Teaching Memoir.

At the core of a strong memoir-writing assignment is a balance of freedom and thoughtful constraints, ensuring that students know they’re in charge of their stories and shouldn’t cross boundaries into areas of their lives that they would regret sharing, said Jon Mundorf, a teacher studying memoir at the P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, a public school run by the University of Florida.

“It’s easy for memoirs to take on a life of their own,” said Mundorf, an Anne Frank Award recipient, regarding studying memoir. “Memoir is not therapy. Boundaries are a really important part of this. … If we treat memoir like it’s this one-draft emotional release, it loses its instructional power.”

In assigning such pieces, Mundorf encourages students to study memoir and think about the importance of place and setting, and how it becomes, in a sense, an important character in their story. In addition, students need to be guided through the process of shaping their experiences into a meaningful narrative and not simply recounting events.

“It’s important that we teach kids to be reflective and see the big picture,” he said. “It’s not a quick, ‘Write about a time you did a thing.’”

Ovalle recalls an assignment he gave in which students interviewed one of their parents, as if for a podcast. “It was them telling the story of someone they knew well,” he said about studying memoir, adding, “We all have our own stories. If students can be encouraged to tell their own stories, narrativize their own life, that’s what memoir should be teaching our students.”

Read the full article about the benefits of students studying memoir by Ed Finkel at K-12 Dive.