Classroom of the Week: “Praisin’ God with My Six String”
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
As another school year comes to a close, notes from teachers across the country continue to pour in with amazing stories of Six Words in the classroom. Whether it’s as a writing prompt, art project, or icebreaker, we love hearing—and seeing—how students are using the form to express themselves.
From Edinburg, Texas, 8th grade ELA teacher Stephanie Sauceda recently wrote to tell us about introducing Six Words to junior high students along with five of her fellow teachers. The results? Stephanie says, “The kids amazed us with their hard work and insight on issues dealing with family, life, love, and more.”
One look at the gallery of artwork inspired by their memoirs (only a small portion of the 400 plus created!) and it’s easy to see what she means. From the quintessentially Texan (“Praisin’ God with my six string”) to the universally adolescent (“Short kid, long hair, don’t care”), each of the pieces are powerfully personal portraits of these middle-school artists. Through six words, students tapped into their dreams, (“Plain in sight…out of reach”), fears (“Not even armor can protect me”) and resolve (“The stumbles make it worth it”), bravely transforming the results into paintings. Color us impressed and inspired.
Note: With the generous support of our publisher, Harper Perennial, we’ve created two Six-Word Memoir lesson plans, one for our first book, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, as well as one for our teen book, I Can’t Keep My Own Secrets: Six-Word Memoirs by Teens Famous & Obscure. Download a free PDF of either or both below. In return, all we ask is that you let us know how six words works in your class. We love sharing your stories with the rest of the SMITH community.
Teachers Guide: First Six-Word Memoir book (click to download)
Teachers Guide: Teen Six-Word Memoir book (click to download)
Video: “Six Tips for Writing Six-Word Memoirs.”
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in Georges Seurat’s “A Sunday
Afternoon on the Island of La Grande
painting, which is also an Art Institute
But the hijinks didn’t stop there
Lightfoot and her glare started popping
There was one of Lightfoot standing
on a police sawhorse at the lakefront
with a warning: “Thou shall not
pass.” Someone also superimposed her face
on the Bat-Signal. Another showed
Lightfoot giving a seven-day weather
outlook, with the forecast just showing
home.” Another had her holding a
Pennywise balloon at the Red
Line station. (Pennywise is the main
Census Cowboy was tasked with
reminding Chicagoans to fill out their
census form because why not, right
The man tapped to play the urban
cowboy was Adam Hollingsworth