Prompts for Memoir Class

 

What a delight! Enough pages have flipped on the calendar and the time is here!  It is memoir writing time at Dietert Senior Center. The class will meet for five weeks, ninety minutes each Thursday morning. That is not much time to "memoir one's life," but we can begin, share, motivate and instill inspirations with one another.

The curriculum design from Story Circle Network — Women Writers & Writing Resources that I am implementing is broad. It has good framework and then the add-ons are my design and challenge my creativity, such as the prompts below.

I begin with a chair poem as learned in Amherst Writers & Artists A home for writers & writing workshop leaders ⋆ Amherst Writers & Artists. The poem may or may not be used as a writing prompt. It may just be a "gift" to enjoy.

Then the sharing takes place, and we also share writing space incorporating the main idea of the day. For example, our first meeting centered around our ancestors, legacies they have left, memories they created with us, absences in our lives, etc.

The meeting did not have a closure to it that I would and should have implemented. I shall try to develop that facet for this next meeting. It is important, I believe, to have a meditative closure or a short inspirational thought.

Here are the three prompts I emailed the participants to encourage writing:

1. Although my ancestor’s life experience cannot be confirmed with facts, I have come to these conclusions….           (from Rachael Freed’s Women’s Lives, Women’s Legacies)

2. Create a list of “firsts” from your timeline, i.e., first home, first school, first friend, first kiss, first job, airplane/train/bus ride, first car, first trip alone, etc. Elaborate as you desire when a “first” grows into another story and yet another memory.

3. Write about something that has been passed down through your family for generations, perhaps an appreciation for music, or books or a type of food. Explore the positive and negative implications of this inheritance and how it has shaped you.

As you see, you can write objectively as in (2) or weave in your opinion as in (1) or subjectively explore the environmental influence that you select in (3).

Happy Memoir Musing!