A Taste of Memoir by Fran Haley

I’ve done a lot of writing: Literary criticism, poetry, fiction, fantasy.

But it was teaching writing that led me to memoir.

Years ago, a colleague invited me to write with her fifth-grade class. She said she wanted to “spice up the unit” to get the students excited. Would I come to model how to write a memoir?

“I’d love to!” I replied.

        Then… where to start?


After a little research and much pondering, I decided that a fifth-grade memoir is really a moment maximized to its fullest, woven with universal themes. A small moment on steroids, I told myself.

This is going to work best if I use experiences from when I was their age…

Nearly-forgotten memories suddenly clamored in my head:

-Being invited to a costume party at the last minute (my mother coated my face and arms with white shoe polish, wrapped a sheet around me, painted my eyes black: I went as Death. The white shoe polish cracked all over, the perfect zombie-like effect)
-My grandmother sending me a horrible daisy outfit for my birthday (shudder!)
-A boy in my fifth-grade class doing the noblest thing I’ve ever seen, one Valentine’s Day
-A sick kitten that I couldn’t save

I realized there were strong emotions attached to each memory: Excitement, embarrassment. Anger. Awe. Grief.

Life is, after all, full of feelings. The universal thread of the human condition. I let the class pick the emotion they wanted to experience when I wrote; they asked questions they wanted me to answer in the writing … and so our amazing memoir adventure began.

And, once stirred, the memories keep rising to meet me, as if childhood wasn’t so long ago. We’re still here! they call. Tell about us. Let us live again.

And so I do.

With profound gratitude.



Fran Haley is a K-12 English Language Arts educator currently serving as a K-5 literacy coach. Writing is her favorite thing to do and to teach; she loves helping others of all ages grow to love writing. She facilitates writing workshop training for teachers in her district and authors the blog Lit Bits and Pieces: Snippets of Learning and Life. Connect with Fran on Twitter: @fahaley.