You Can Say a Lot in 6 Words.
What Do You Have to Say?

Author Ernest Hemingway
(1899-1961)
Father of the 6-Word Memoir
Legend has it that in the
1920s, author Ernest
Hemingway said that he could write a complete story in just six words.
He wrote: “For sale, baby shoes, never worn.”

• a record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation
(Merriam—Webster Online)
• a personal story about a significant moment in the author’s life
(E. Peters)

• true
• written in the first person
• a reflection of the author´s point of view
• a description of one important moment, event, lesson, or belief

• As a young girl, Malala
Yousafzai defied the
Taliban in Pakistan and demanded that girls be allowed to receive an education. She was shot in the head by a
Taliban gunman in
2012, but survived.

• Subtitled Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My
Closets, Fight Right, Read
Aristotle, and Generally
Have More Fun , this book is one person´s account of a year-long attempt to discover what leads to true contentment

Memoirs can be deeply personal, such as this account of a descent into mental illness.
• The author describes how she crossed the line between sanity and insanity after an unknown pathogen invaded her body, causing an autoimmune reaction that jump-started brain inflammation, paranoia, and seizures.

. . . or this account of a young boy’s desperate attempt to avoid his troubles
• During a year of physical recovery from selfinflicted burns, the author questions what he’d done, undertaking the complicated journey from near-death back to high school. It is a compelling book about teenage despair and recovery.

This is a well-known memoir that many high school students read

• 6 words…
• Just six words!
•
Six MEANINGFUL words

• Malala Yousafzai: Author of I Am Malala
• Gretchen Rubin: Author of The Happiness
Project
• Susannah Cahalan: Author of Brain on Fire
• Brent Runyon: Author of The Burn Journals
• Elie Wiesel: Author of Night

• True happiness is finding peace inside.

• Love and faith can conquer anything.

• I was wrong. Reality doesn’t burn.

• Love’s opposite isn’t hate; it’s indifference.

• Beginning, gurgly. Middle, sombre. End, gurgly.
- Roger Noble
• Jennie, Emma, Jane, Sophie, Rose, happiness.
- Peter Graham
• Slow lane. Fast lane. Hard shoulder.
- Alex Hansen
• Unravelled career reknitted as baby blankets.
- Clare Hobba
• Head in books, feet in flowers.
- Heather Thomson

• “Get over it.” Impossible three words.
• Inside suburban mom beats urban heart.
• Went to war; never came back.
• In prayer my true colors show.
• I’m a Muslim, not a terrorist.
• It’s easy: be who you are.

• In order to reduce something significant into just six words, those words must be very carefully chosen. This is a great time to really think about what words mean.
• It is also a great time to consider what it means to truly revise written work.

List as many words, topics, memories, or personality traits as you can about yourself – activities you do, items, belongings, places you like, and feelings you have. Don’t edit, cross out, change, or rewrite words. Don’t worry about spelling – just write . You are going for quantity, so write as much as you can in about three minutes. You should fill at least one full page.

Introvert, gardening, reading, content, tired, overworked, cooking, baking, colorful, shoes, daisies, irises, wife, teacher, daughter, literature, singing, laughing, word jumbles, memory games,
Indie music, rock music, old country, cats, dog, goat, bubble baths, orange
Tic Tacs, Junior Mints, crayons, Hello
Kitty, naps, swimming, yoga, Saturday morning, sunrises, sunsets, beach, mountains, mother, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, Nick, thinking, dreaming, chocolate

Now, circle the two or three words that stand out for you, the ones that you could say more about.

Introvert, gardening, reading, content, tired, overworked, cooking, baking, colorful, shoes, daisies, irises, wife, teacher, daughter, literature, singing, laughing, word jumbles, memory games,
Indie music, rock music, old country, cats, dog, goat, bubble baths, orange
Tic Tacs, Junior Mints, crayons, Hello
Kitty, naps, swimming, yoga, Saturday morning, sunrises, sunsets, beach, mountains, mother, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, Nick, thinking, dreaming, chocolate

Pick one item and freewrite about it.
That means you just start writing about that idea, object, role, or event. The only rule is don’t stop writing for at least two or three minutes. Whatever comes to mind is fair game .
introvert

Being an introvert is not easy. People think that I’m snotty, or cold, or prickly. I have trouble talking to strangers, I dislike going anywhere or doing anything by myself, but I also hate going someplace that might have a large group of strangers that I potentially have to converse with.
Parties, new situations, crowded places fill me with dread. Why am I a teacher, then? Good question! I haven’t always been this introverted...

It started in my midtwenties, after I’d been teaching for a few years, so I had already learned teaching is what I’m supposed to do. I just needed to find a way to deal with anxiety and panic.
Somehow, I found a “switch” to turn off the introvert and bring out the extrovert. It’s exhausting! New things and people still create anxiety, but I can handle it. Most of the time. I need a lot of down time for myself, and, fortunately, my husband gets it.

As a result of the freewrite, you will gain a sense of your topic. The next step is to synthesize ( combine the individual elements into an understandable whole) your writing into six words that capture the essence of what your topic means to you. I attempted to capture the struggle of being an introvert in an extroverted career.
It’s pretty complicated, so I’m going to brainstorm some phrases before I write my 6-word memoir.

No defenses
Heart pounding
Need an escape  reading

Scared introvert looking for solitude.
Scared introvert seeking peace and tranquility.

Now create a final six-word memoir by following these steps:
1.
Create a “you” list – freewrite as many words about you as you can.
2. Pick 2 – 3 items that inspire you to say more. Circle them.
3. From those items you circled, select one.
4. Freewrite about your idea for ten minutes.
5. Brainstorm short phrases that help to describe your topic.
6. Develop a 6-word memoir that captures a sense of your writing. . . and you!
7. Self-Edit: Make at least one type of change—word choice, varying sentence structure, or punctuation.
8. 2nd Draft: Conference with another student or an adult.
9. Create your 6-word memoir final draft.
10. Final effort: Create a Publisher or Word with the six-word memoir and personally relevant background picture(s), which can come from Google images or personal photos. Save your presentation and print it out using the color printer in the library or at home.
11. Turn your six-word memoir on Monday.