Nonfiction EQ Workshop: Nonfiction Series Part 2 [S5 E117]

Listen to the full episode below:

We’re on this podcast for a lot of reasons, and one of them is to unpack one of the most powerful and often underutilized genres in the ELA curriculum world, and that is biography and memoir. In our last episode, we began making our passionate case for biography and memoir. If you missed it, you can check it out here. 

We’re continuing that conversation today so that you can get even more excited to join our upcoming virtual workshop on teaching memoir and biography. Tickets start at just $7 and we would love to have you join us!

We really want this episode to serve as your initial brainstorming so that when you come to the workshop, you are feeling prepared and have ideas ready to go.

When we’re talking about how to effectively approach this genre, it all starts with essential questions. If it feels challenging to craft essential questions for biography and memoir, don’t worry, we have lots of ideas for how you can do this with intention.

In fact, we have three specific approaches to creating a unit around biography and memoir:

1. Look at the genre itself, through the lens of an authentic experience

2. Look at a specific text and using themes within that story to craft a question

3. Look at a specific theme in order to select texts and ask a question that applies to more than one text.

To be clear, we’re talking about a stand alone unit that focuses on works that are authentic voices and coming directly from the perspective of lived experience. Trust us, this will be a unit that will drive discovery, critical thinking, and engaging conversation.

If you are ready to collect all the tools you need to build a successful memoir unit, be sure to join us in our virtual workshop!

Topics Covered:

• How you can get our professional development workshops paid for by your school

• Our 3 approaches to building a unit around biography and memoir

• The 3 main components that we look at when we create essential questions

• Example of essential questions that could be used for memoir

• The difference between whole class text-specific essential questions versus centered on the text

Resources:

• Sign up for the biography and memoir virtual workshop

• Check out our other virtual workshops

• Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson

• Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner

• The Glass Castle: A Memoir 

• Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, Trevor Noah

• In the Country We Love: My Family Divided, Diane Guerrero

• A Long Walk to Water, Linda Sue Park

• Join our FREE Unit Makeover challenge

• Join Curriculum Rehab

• Connect with us on Instagram @bravenewteaching

• Follow Marie on Instagram: @thecaffeinatedclass

• Follow Amanda on Instagram: @mudandinkteaching

• Let us know what you think! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Related Episodes:

• Episode 116, Why Teach Biography & Memoir: Nonfiction Series Part 1

• Episode 81, Essential Question Workshop: Dystopia (Woohoo!)

• Episode 63, Choice Reading 101

• Episode 59, Essential Question Workshop: 12th Grade Lit

• Episode 15, To Write an Essential Question

More about Brave New Teaching:

Join hosts Amanda Cardenas (Mud & Ink Teaching) and Marie Morris (The Caffeinated Classroom) in discussions about being brave, trying new things, and all things teaching! As seasoned classroom teachers, Amanda and Marie bring their experience, insight, energy, and oh, so many opinions and ideas... It's time for all teachers to take their classroom and teaching practice into their own hands!

Tune in on your favorite podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.