Creative Nonfiction: Memoirs, Personal Narratives, & Autobiographies

Creative
Nonfiction
Memoirs, Personal Narratives, &
Autobiographies
What is an Autobiography?
• An autobiography is a TRUE story about someone’s WHOLE
life and is written and narrated by the person it’s about.
Making Connections:
Have you ever read a book or
seen a movie about a real-life
person? Explain.
Think-Turn and Talk!
Making Connections: Biographical Movies
What is a Memoir?
• A memoir is a TRUE story about PART of someone’s life and
is written and narrated by the person it’s about. It could be just
about their childhood, their adolescent (teenage) years, their
adult life, or their life in old age.
What is a Personal Narrative?
• A personal narrative is a TRUE story about ONE EVENT in
someone’s life, like their first time experiencing something,
facing a fear, being successful at something challenging, or
overcoming an obstacle. Personal Narratives follow the story
mountain diagram. These are like your small moment stories.
Making Connections:
Has your teacher ever asked
you to write a personal narrative?
Explain.
Think-Turn and Talk!!
Why is this genre called “literary”
nonfiction?
• “Literary” means “qualities of literature”. That means that even
though autobiographies, memoirs, and personal narratives are TRUE
like nonfiction texts, they have qualities like fiction, such as:
• Themes
• 1st person Point of View So, literary nonfiction
• Figurative Language is REAL like expository text,
but looks like FICTION?
• A narrator/ protagonist
Interesting!
• Setting
• Author’s Purpose
• Narrator’s /character reactions to events
• Plot (personal narratives)
• Narrator experiences changes
• Reflection/ Lessons learned
• Time period is the past
• Text structure is chronological/ sequential
Point of View
What literary qualities did Cisneros use in the
excerpt “Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark”?
• What is the setting?

• What is the point of view?
• Did the author use figurative
language?
• Did the narrator react to an event?
• How does the narrator feel?
• What is the theme?
• What is the text structure?
Let’s discuss as a class!!!!

Example of a Memoir: The House on Mango
Street CPQ: How is this text like fiction?
• “Your abuelito is dead, Papa says early one morning in my room. Esta muerto,
and then as if he just heard the news himself, crumples like a coat and cries, my
brave Papa cries. I have never seen my Papa cry and don’t know what to do.
• I know he will have to go away, that he will take a plane to Mexico, all the
uncles and aunts will be there, and they will have a black-and-white photo taken
in front of the tomb with flowers shaped like spears in a white vase because this
is how they send the dead away in that country.
• Because I am the oldest, my father has told me first, and now it is my turn to tell
the others. I will have to explain why we can’t play. I will have to tell them to be
quiet today.
• My Papa, his thick hands and thick shoes, who wakes up tired in the dark, who
combs his hair with water, drinks his coffee, and is gone before we wake, today
is sitting on my bed.
• And I think if my own Papa died what would I do. I hold my Papa in my arms. I
hold and hold and hold him.”
Chapter titled, “Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark”

What literary qualities did Soto use in the excerpt from
“The Jacket”?
• What is the setting?
• Did the author use figurative
language?
• Did the narrator react to an
event?
• What is the theme?
Let’s discuss as a class!!!! Personal Narrative
Example of a Personal Narrative: The Jacket
CPQ: How is this text like fiction?
• “We paraded out into the yard where we, the sixth graders, walked
past all the other grades, to stand against the back fence.
Everybody saw me. Although they didn’t say out loud, “Man,
that’s ugly,” I heard the buzz-buzz of gossip and laughter I knew
was meant for me.
• And so I went, in my guacamole-colored jacket. So embarrassed,
so hurt, I couldn’t even do my homework. I received C’s on my
quizzes, and forgot the state capitals and the rivers of South
America, our friendly neighbors. Even the girls who had been
friendly blew away like loose flowers to follow the boys in neat
jackets.”
• ~Excerpt from “The Jacket” by Gary Soto
What literary qualities did Keller use in the excerpt
from “Story of My Life”?
• Did the author use
figurative language?
• What makes this example so
different from the first two?
Let’s discuss as a class!!!!

Example of an Autobiography: “The Story
of My Life” CPQ: How is this text like fiction?
•1 “It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. I have, as it were, a
superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden
mist. The task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one. When I try to classify my
earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the
past with the present. The woman paints the child's experiences in her own fantasy. A few
impressions stand out vividly from the first years of my life; but "the shadows of the
prison-house are on the rest." Besides, many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have
lost their poignancy; and many incidents of vital importance in my early education have
been forgotten in the excitement of great discoveries. In order, therefore, not to be tedious
I shall try to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to me to be the
2 most interesting and important.
• I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of northern Alabama.
•3 The family on my father's side is descended from Caspar Keller, a native of Switzerland,
who settled in Maryland. One of my Swiss ancestors was the first teacher of the deaf in
Zurich and wrote a book on the subject of their education--rather a singular coincidence;
though it is true that there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no
slave who has not had a king among his.”
• ~Excerpt from “The Story of My Life” by Helen Keller
What does “Fictional Adaptation” mean?
• Fictional adaptation means to take a TRUE story’s facts and use
them to make fiction. For example, The Diary of Anne Frank is
TRUE and considered a MEMOIR. In class, we’re going to read a
FICTIONAL ADAPTATION of that memoir because someone has
taken the TRUTH from Frank’s MEMOIR and turned it into a
PLAY. As you know, a play is considered fiction.
Can speeches, which are considered
nonfiction, have literary elements like fiction?
• Absolutely. Speeches use literary elements all the time, particularly
literary devices, such as figurative language and imagery.
Speeches use literary devices to help appeal to audiences. For
example, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is FULL
of literary devices.
Example of a Speech with Literary Devices
• I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the
true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal."
• I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit
down together at the table of brotherhood.
• I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state
sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of
oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
• I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character.
• I have a dream today.
• ~Excerpt from “I Have a Dream” by MLK

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• What is the setting?

Let’s discuss as a class!!!!

Chapter titled, “Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark”

Let’s discuss as a class!!!!

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