Curriculum Memoir Unit

Middle School Memoir Unit

In the spring of 2020, during the peak of the pandemic in New York City when all public schools were remote, I facilitated the design and implementation of a 20-lesson memoir unit with a Brooklyn middle-school teacher team. I built a single linked system connecting every lesson’s objective and assessment to a daily slide deck, mentor texts, a teacher model, a standards-based rubric, student samples, and conferencing tools. At the end of the year, I created and led a 2½-hour professional-learning session to introduce the completed unit to teachers at other schools and support them in adapting it for their own classrooms.

Context: NYCPS Academic Response Team, 2020
Scope: 20 lessons, fully linked
My role: Design lead and facilitator
Transfer: 2½-hour session for other schools

ProcessCo-planned and co-taught with teachers over Google Meet, then compiled the slides, mentor texts, guidance, and rubric into one place so the unit could be understood and used, not just read.

The 20-lesson unit map

The three-page map is the unit’s base camp: it sequences all 20 lessons, pairs each objective with a corresponding assessment and slide deck, and links the shared texts and tools used across the unit. All three pages are shown in full below.

Follow Lesson 11 from objective through independent writing ↓

Middle School Memoir Unit map introduction and Lessons 1 through 6 — Page one: the unit’s linked resources sit at the top, above the lesson-by-lesson table pairing each objective with its assessment and slide deck.

Middle School Memoir Unit map, Lessons 7 through 18 — Page two carries the sequence from Lesson 7 through Lesson 18, including Lesson 11, where students add reflection to their own memoirs.

Final portion of the Middle School Memoir Unit map, Lessons 15 through 20 — The final page closes the arc through Lesson 20, ending in publication and reflection.

Lesson 11: Adding reflection in memoir

The linked lesson moves from a named reflection focus and objective through teacher modeling and independent writing. Every lesson in the unit follows this same shape, which is what let teachers adapt it without rebuilding it.

Lesson 11 title slide introducing reflection in memoir writing — **Lesson focus**The deck opens by naming the reflection writing move.

Lesson 11 objective slide asking students to add reflection to their memoir writing — **Objective**Students prepare to add their own reflection to a memoir.

Lesson 11 slide using Leah Grabelsky's Car Keys memoir to model reflection — **Teacher modeling**My memoir “Car Keys” makes the writing move visible.

Lesson 11 independent writing slide asking students to continue their memoir and add reflection — **Independent writing**Students apply the move in their own memoirs.

View the complete Lesson 11 deck ↗

Professional learning for transfer

At the end of the year, I created and led a 2½-hour session to introduce the completed unit to teachers at other schools, make its instructional model explicit, and support adaptation.

Title slide: Reading & Writing Memoir, Middle School ELA Unit

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The complete 23-slide session, hosted here in full. Student names, student faces, and the text of the teacher-written model are redacted.