Our group began our morning by introducing ourselves and playing a “This or That” game. They had to choose between a beach day or a camping trip, candy or ice cream, and video games or sports. After getting to know each other, we discussed the difference between an autobiography and a biography. We also looked at an example of an autobiographical poem, “Autobiographia Literaria” by Frank O’Hara, and discussed what an illustration to go along with the poem might look like. In the poem, our speaker is talking about being alone as a child and how that changed when he became an adult. The painting we looked at portrayed a girl sitting in a chair by herself, and we all agreed that it could be a good painting to represent the speaker in the poem, but a few of us had concerns about the author of the poem being a boy and the painting portraying a girl. We concluded that the emotions shown in the painting were more important, so it would still work. We used this poem as a starting point to talk about change and what types of things change. Some of the ideas we came up with were bananas, emotions, the earth, personalities, and pencils. We had trouble thinking of things that do NOT change, so I challenge you at home to try and think of some things that stay the same forever!

After lunch, we read “The Important Book” by Margaret Wise Brown, and students were able to create their own important poems about themselves! They included all sorts of information including their hair color, sports they play, instruments they’re learning, and traits their friends and family would use to describe them, such as kind or brave. We are going to display our poems in the classroom for now, but they will be sent home on Friday. In the meantime, ask your student which personality traits and unique features they included in their poem.

Throughout the week, students will brainstorm times in their lives when they went through great changes and use them to write their own short autobiographies. To prepare for our own writing, we will explore different styles of autobiographies, including short stories and interviews with an author. Some of the people we will be looking at include Jeff Kinney, the author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Kate DiCamillo. I look forward to getting to know each student better as the week goes on!