Seminar: Writing a Research-based Personal Essay
Program: TLSI
Subject Area: English Language Arts
Grade Level: 7th
Year of Publication: 2023
Abstract
This is a narrative writing unit developed for 7th Grade English Language Arts – Writing students at San Carlos Middle School – San Carlos Unified School District (SCMS-SCUSD). It is anchored on the personal diary format scaffolded by the model of the National Book Awarded novel, Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. Four lesson plans are structured in segments according to the narrative writing process (pre-planning, organizing, drafting, revising, publishing). It is front-loaded/prefaced with descriptive writing and dialogue-writing mini lessons, interview, and reporting, ending in plot dioramas and character illustrations and three short personal narratives written in the informal-confessional style of diary entries on growing up “rez”, in the tradition of coming of age genres.