Giving Life To Memories That Bind Generations

By Nancy K. Crevier

Since January 12, for one hour on Tuesday evenings, 11 Hawley School fourth graders and a significant adult in their lives meet in the school library to write and share memoirs, a project that Hawley fourth grade teacher Lea Attanasio has been leading for three years. There are various combinations of adult and child pairs this year: mother/daughter; mother/son; and father/son, from all four of Hawley’s fourth grade classrooms.

As a parent and as an educator, Ms Attanasio is aware of the positive impact joint projects can have on a child’s success in school. “I love teaching writing,” said Ms Attanasio, “but I couldn’t figure out a way to fit more writing into our curriculum.”

A project with the Newtown Senior Center four years ago, in which senior citizens shared memories of how they had celebrated birthdays growing up, and shared different cultural traditions with her Hawley students triggered the idea of a program in which families could share their stories.

“I had no preconceived notion of what the class would be, but I spent that summer reading memoirs and children’s picture book memoirs,” Ms Attanasio said. She realized that memoir writing would be a wonderful vehicle for parent/child interaction. “Kids don’t think about how an event becomes a part of who they are. And families learn about each other, including things they might not have ever known otherwise,” she said. “Memoirs are very personal.”

That is what truly differentiates the writing from just telling a story, said Ms Attanasio. “Memoirs are not just writing the memory.” What is important is understanding what she calls, “So what?” — the reason why a person chooses to write a memoir.

What began as an opportunity to try a little bit of writing for the participants, said Ms Attanasio, turned into “an intense, meaningful exercise in thoughtful reflection.”

Each class is a combination of writing exercises to jump start ideas, time to write, and optional sharing. “Jot and Jog” is an exercise that builds on a starter sentence that Ms Attanasio throws out to the group in a circle, such as “I remember the first time…” The group jots it down in a writing journal, jogs back to a seat, and writes to complete the thought. They then jog back to the circle and share. The class sometimes reads a brief memoir together to generate memories and stimulate the writing process. “It’s important to get immersed in the process and what a memoir is, so I do have tons of memoir books that I lend out for them to read outside of class,” said Ms Attanasio.

So What?

On a recent Tuesday evening, the writers started class with a brief discussion of memoir picture books that the families had brought home to read the previous week. “Did anyone get the ‘So what?’ in this book?” asked one mother. No one else had read that story, but Ms Attanasio promised to take a look at it, explaining that sometimes memoirs are written in such a way that the “so what” is hard to pull out.

From there, parents and children shared writing exercises that they had completed at home. Beckett Condon wrote about her mother’s annual gift of gloves — and brought in the actual gloves. Ten-year-old Hayley Lambert shared her memory of a very special birthday cake, the “castle cake,” while 9-year-old Veronica Craig shared her memory that began, “My favorite present ever would have to be my dog.”

The opportunity to share memories was a factor in taking the class, said most participants, but others found it a fun way to improve writing skills. “I wanted to participate because he’s a pretty good writer and it’s good father/son time,” said Mark Sleeva, who takes part in the class with his 10-year-old son, Brian.

“I actually really like the class. I like how people share about their childhood and memories. And every time we come here, we end up laughing,” added Brian.

“My daughter, Caroline, likes to write,” said Beckett Condon, “and I kind of like to write. I thought it would be good practice. Now she’s writing every day of her life.”

Caroline agreed with her mother that the class is fun, and said, “I like how we get to write about stuff that happened to us earlier, and how we get to bring home books to read.”

John Farley and his son Adam, 9, sheepishly admitted that while the memoir writing class has turned out to be “good quality time together,” it was “Mom’s idea” that they take it.

“I like the time with my dad. He usually works and works a lot,” said Adam, then added, “And I like the snacks.”

Sharing time was followed by a trip to the “book nook” where young readers took turns reading out loud “Grandma’s Scrapbook” by Josephine Nobisso, in preparation for the evening’s writing exercise.

Participants had brought in photographs from home, and gathered in groups of six, picked one photo each to tell about to the group, then wrote about the photo. The evening wrapped up with the quiet sound of pencils scribbling madly across paper. “Sometimes, an hour isn’t enough,” said Ms Attanasio. “They want to stay later.”

Getting Started

The hardest part of writing a memoir is to just get started. “It’s not hard to write about what you know,” she said. “And when you’re writing for yourself you can be honest and there’s no pressure.” An artfully written memoir, said Ms Attanasio, uses honesty to remind us all that we are human.

As the writers become more familiar with the genre and comfortable with the writing process, they begin to write longer pieces in and outside of the class, said Ms Attanasio. “Most of the adults aren’t writers, it’s usually the child who is interested in writing. But the parents see it as a way to spend time together. Part of the value, too, is that it models how we teach writing in school. It’s nothing like what we did a generation ago. Parents can see the depth of what their children are learning,” she said.

There is no charge for the six-week course, and the class is not graded. “I didn’t want to have to assess them. I want it to be a safe and comfortable place to write,” Ms Attanasio explained.

She was surprised the first year that rather than the longer pieces being created in tandem, the adults and children generally chose to write separate memoirs. “They were all family memories, but I guess I had thought that they would work together on one piece. It didn’t work out like that, but that’s okay, too,” she said.

Her role in the class is mainly supportive, said Ms Attanasio, helping writers identify their main idea and understand writing techniques that can bring a story from one merely told, to one that is felt. Word choice, fluency, sentence structure, and language can all contribute to breathing life into a memory, she said.

Each year, the final class is a “sharing celebration,” in which the writers are given the option of sharing with the group. Participants can opt to share their thoughts on the entire memoir writing experience or what they had learned from the workshop if they are not at ease sharing the actual memoir. The adults, she has found, can write about particularly personal and emotionally charged issues that are difficult to share out loud. She anticipates, though,  that this year, like the previous two years, the one hour allocated to February 16 will stretch into two or beyond, with no one wanting to leave until the last memoir has been shared.

Every year she is amazed by the intimacy and tenderness of the memoirs that unfold, said Ms Attanasio. “It makes me see how much we really all are the same, no matter what our experiences have been. We all experience emotion.”