September Unit Plan: Music Memoir (Personal Narrative)

An idea inspired by a community member & a unit created in collaboration

Happy September, dear ones. I’m so excited to share this unit with you to kick off our year together!

This idea comes to us from long-time Moving Writers friend (future Moving Writers blogger) and community member K. Keener. K teaches high school students in New York City, and one of the things I admire most about her teaching is the way she meets the needs to the kids in her room while believing them into truly interesting and rigorous and authentic writing work.

When she set up a coaching call with me, she knew she wanted to start the year with a piece of music- related writing. We talked a little about different mentor texts that might lead her in that direction, and what she landed on was a personal essay she calls a “neuro-music map”. (You can submit a question for a FREE coaching call!)

Our work together was so much fun — planning mini lessons, troubleshooting predictable future problems during the unit — that I shamelessly stole it myself for my first unit of the year in seventh grade.

Admittedly, this is a more challenging piece of writing than I would normally begin with. But I committed to the big swing, and swing I shall.

Here’s the unit map.