Senior Memoir Book
During the course of the year you will be writing your memoirs. Your book will consist of your memories and thoughts from your whole life. It will be due in May. You are being given plenty of time to complete a thoughtful piece that is not rushed. The final product will be presented in the form of a scrapbook, decorated to your liking. Please include memorabilia like concert tickets, check stubs, photos, drawings, awards, etc.
The Senior Memoir Book must include a minimum of 18 chapters and each chapter must have a minimum of 140 words. Be creative with your presentation and your words, do not give me a factual description of your life, give me a creative, well written, emotional account of your life filled with similes, puns, hyperboles, etc.
· Memoir: a record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation.
· "A memoir is how one remembers one's own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked." -Gore Vidal
· "Memoirs means when you put down the good things you ought to have done and leave out the bad ones you did do." -Will Rogers
Take the time to examine your life; examine where you came from, what you have done, and where you are headed. The final chapter must be a vision of your future, written from that particular setting, and point of view.
Chapter Examples: Who Am I? - Before I Was, There Were – Suddenly I Became Me – School Bells – I Grew Up Here – Hide And Seek – My First BF/GF – I Wish I Could See – Music, Films, Books – I’m Really In Love Now Mom – The Big Fish – The Little Fish – Let’s Take A Vacation – At Last I Am A Senior – Married With Children – I Messed Up – If I Could Live My Life Over Again, I Would – Dead Man Walking – etc.
The Colour Purple
I remember vividly the day I discovered the morbid colour purple. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The truth of the matter is that it was many moons ago when I was a half-breed; part man/part idiot, not exactly a child but not fully a man either. A notorious day for me; rap sheet worthy. A heinous crime, it crept up on us like an alley dwelling tug.
She lay there peacefully, like a rock collecting moss, in her unfashionable, baby blue gown; the scene too familiar to me. But today was different. Today she lay with no regrets, remorse, or reluctance. As I watched her dawdling, enervated movements, every inch possessing torturous anguish, I couldn’t help but notice her bald ashen scalp, her arid lips, spotted animal print bruises, and those melancholy finger nails ready to offer themselves to their maker. Purple everywhere I looked; purple on the scalp, purple off her lips, purple above her bruises, and purple under those nails. Moments later she left us without moving an inch; a faultless teardrop tumbled consciously down her icy cheek and then she was gone. Off to a finer place, ushering a piece of us with her, only leaving behind the colour purple.
~ Mr. Teoli