This exercise develops into a personal narrative that could be used as either the Introductory essay unit or the TBA essay unit. My goal for any personal narrative is to enable students to move from concrete details about their own experiences to something larger, more abstract that will lead them to the discussion of a larger issue.
First Class Meeting
Step 1
I begin this essay with a writing prompt adapted from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. Similar to what she suggests with the prompt "A Meal You Love," I ask the students to spend some time writing about their favorite meal. I ask them to describe the meal. What is it? What kinds of foods do they have? What are the tastes, textures, colors, smells of the food? Where do they eat their favorite meal? At home? In a restaurant? Grandparent's home? Who is there? Family? Friends? Alone? Why is this their favorite meal? I usually give the students ten to fifteen minutes to write.Step 2
In pairs, I ask the students to share their writing. The writer reads her piece aloud and the responder does two things. First, the responder tells the writer what is memorable? What sticks out for him? What does he like? Then, the responder asks the writer two-three questions about the meal. This enables the writer and responder to have a conversation about the writing and allows more memories, more details about the meal, to surface for the writer.Homework
Based on their conversation with their responder, the students are asked to expand their in-class writing into a mid-process draft. I also ask the students to read Kothari's "If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?" from The Original Text-Wrestling Book.2nd Class Meeting
As a way to enable the students to see that personal narratives are more than the writer describing his or her life, we have a whole class discussion centered on Kothari's essay. I focus the discussion around how Kothari is using food in the essay. What overall points is she making in the essay? How does she use food to connect to something larger? If this is the Introductory essay unit, I find it useful to discuss the different layers of meaning a piece may have. For example, this may be a good time to discuss the difference between summary and the larger point(s) a piece makes.I also find it useful to begin discussing the Kothari essay as we will discuss the students' own writing. Discussing students' writing in ways similar to published essays validates students' work and enables them to occupy the subject position of "writer." It also enables students to make the connection between what published writers are doing in their texts and what kinds of choices they as writers have available to them. So, if for their peer review workshop I am planning to ask them to do Sayback, Pointing, and Questions, I will use the "What's Good for the Goose . . . ." exercise from The Original Text-Wrestling Book as a way to begin the discussion on the Kothari essay.
After a whole class discussion students workshop their drafts in small groups of three to four. (Note: Depending on the class discussion about the Kothari piece, the workshop may take two class meetings). Students work through the steps of Sayback, Pointing, and Questions as well as begin brainstorming for possible directions and connections the piece is making.
