A Music Memoir Unit Remix

Oct 8 2024 Ashley Anderson

Shock-tober is just as much a thing for teachers as it is for students. I don’t know where y’alls students are, but mine are struggling. Struggling not only to make it to school on time but also to even write a sentence…correctly. Because the “struggle is real”, I knew that my students’ next writing assignment needed to be about something they all really, really like: music.

Last month, Rebekah shared with all of us her Music Memoir Unit and I instantly knew that this would be it – the one writing assignment that all my students would be excited about. (“Excited” was a bit too strong of a feeling for them, but they didn’t hate it.) If you haven’t checked out Rebekah’s unit, it is a dream. You have the pacing, the slides, and the mentor texts already ready to go. The unit allows students to explore three different mentor texts, all while working on their own music memoir.

While I usually prefer (and listen to) original songs when it comes to music, once in a while, a new artist’s remix of an original can hit all the right notes for me at that time. I normally wouldn’t alter or stray too far away from a “Rebekah O’Dell original”, however, I have (for one time only) altered and rearranged a few “notes” for my music memoir unit remix.

Here’s what it looks like in my classroom:

This unit took about two and a half weeks, with students submitting a final draft of their music memoir. Unlike Rebekah’s unit, my students and I focused primarily on only one of the mentor texts. I also spent more days focusing on how our mentor text was structured or in this case the text map. I found that my students needed way more support with this element than any other part.

Week 1 is all about getting the band together. Students get introduced to the topic, they get to brainstorm (and listen to music), and they get to examine their mentor text. This is the week we also are looking at how the mentor text is mapped out and then starting to map out our own piece of writing.

Week 2 is about going solo. Students spend most of this week drafting their music memoir. We will go back into the mentor text to examine it for storytelling elements and emotions. Once we look at the mentor text deeper, students are then encouraged to look at their draft and try to take their writing deeper.

Week 3 is the final performance. Students are getting one more mini-lesson by going back into our mentor text. They are adding the final touches to their memoir, and are having writing conferences with me. Students are introduced to their rubric and then use the rubric to make their final edits before they submit it.

Here are the materials students are using in class:

Students are still doing a lot of the work in their notebooks or on paper. The materials that I am sharing below are either original to my class or are a “remix” of what Rebekah originally provided in her unit.

Week 1
- Mentor Text – Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison
  - Students receive a paper copy of this mentor text because we annotate it, we mark it for text mapping, and we also look at this mentor text for examples of the grammar that we are studying.
- Text Mapping
  - This is something I added after the text mapping post-it note activity that is shown in my slides below and Rebekah’s original unit.
  - The post-it note activity serves as a check for understanding and half my kiddos didn’t get it. So the next day, I gave every student this and they worked in pairs to break down each paragraph into the three parts of our text map. It went MUCH better and by the end of this activity, every student understood that their piece also would need to have these three parts.
- Slides
  - Use or toss. These were my slides for week one and showed my pacing.

Week 2
- Storytelling & Emotional Connection Mini-Mentor Texts and Checklist
  - Both of these lessons were originally two separate days in Rebekah’s unit, but I didn’t have that much time, and I wasn’t using the other two mentor texts. My students and I were focused on only one mentor text this whole unit.
  - Students were given these mini/mentor texts and checklists to help them write on their drafting days. We reviewed and discussed both of these different parts in class. Observations were made, questions were asked, but then students were able to go back to their writing.
- My Music Memoir Draft
  - As always, I am writing with students while they are writing. I am using the same checklists, the same mentor text, and the same text mapping. Students see my first few drafts written in my notebook during week one, but during week two I move to a Google doc, just like they are.
  - I encourage my students to mimic, because most of them are struggling writers, and (to be totally honest) I am a struggling writer. It is evident to my students (and it will be to you) which paragraphs I chose to mimic.
- Slides

Week 3
- Parts & Pieces/Text Evidence Mini-Mentor Texts
  - Lesson Learned: When I do this unit next year, and I will because students wrote well and made a lot of progress in their writing craft, I will take out these two mini lessons from Rebekah’s original unit.
  - Looking at the “parts and pieces” and “folding in text evidence” was too much for my students. Most of them didn’t need these two mini-lessons, but they would make great mini-lessons for a writing conference.

Overall, my students felt that this style of writing was the most challenging style they had ever written. But, this assignment had students submitting some of the BEST writing they have EVER done — that’s right, by focusing on their writing craft, they all hit “platinum” with me!

Hopefully, not just a “one-hit wonder”, Ashley Anderson

I am still trying to figure this teaching thing out — what works with my students and what doesn’t. And I’m always working on how to make our state test less ominous and soul-crushing. Do you have a state test that you have to prepare your students for? What are some lessons you are doing in class to help prepare them? You can connect with me on Twitter @Teaching_IsLife or Facebook at facebook.com/movingwriters.

Ashley Anderson is an English teacher at the Dickinson Continuation Center (DCC) in Dickinson, TX. She is in her ninth year of teaching. Before entering education, Ashley was a Captain in the United States Air Force and managed marketing and communications for several private aviation companies. She loves cold coffee, doing sudoku, and cheering on her Gators (students) at all of their extracurricular activities. She lives with her husband, Chad (who is also a high school teacher in Dickinson ISD), and her two daughters Avery (#AveryMonster) and Audrey (#BabyBop). Ashley is humbled every day to be part of a profession with so much passion and commitment. She is so excited about being a part of the MovingWriters team for another year.