Trying to help my students envision the bigger picture when they’re writing their stories, I assigned them to explain in two sentences what their life story is all about. To help them along, I told them to think of the paragraph they would put on the back of a book jacket that would tempt people to buy their book. It’s actually a tough assignment, and I saw more than one student’s eyes glaze over during my discussion. They will be bringing their summaries to class next week, and I’ll post them on my blog, along with my reasons for giving this assignment.
I also asked my students to specifically identify who they’re writing for. Their answer will shape what they write and how they write it. When I consider all the potential people I’m writing for, I find that the readers who matter most to me are the people pictured in the photos below–my grandkids–because it’s important to me that they understand who came before them and how their lives have been influenced and, yes, blessed, by the struggles and often difficult decisions of their forbears. Therein lies family pride and a sense of identity. I’ve acquired a couple of cute photos of them recently, and this is as good a time as any to show them off. So, here are the Thurston grandchildren. The first photo shows them modeling their new Easter outfits. I snapped the second one last weekend of them inside a movie theatre wearing their 3-D glasses prior to the screening of How to Train Your Dragon. They LOVE 3-D!