Magical Memoir Moments

Combining Service, Learning, and Memoir: An Intergenerational Approach and Syllabus

Since I am preparing to teach memoir to college students, I’m anticipating a question: How write about a life when it does not yet contain a long timeline with twists and turns in it? There are many solutions to this problem: Memoir thrives on the short view anyway. It is not the chronicle of a…

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The Power of Narrative: Another Memoir Class Syllabus

Since my own book order is due to the bookstore by April 15, I need to start thinking hard about my own choices for the course I’ll be teaching in the fall. So here is one more syllabus to study. Every time I look at a syllabus created by Richard Gilbert I want to sign…

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A Graduate-Level Spiritual Memoir Course Syllabus

Last week I met a dynamic professor from Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary who told me she visited this blog several times while she was teaching a course on spiritual memoir. I was delighted to meet her and to know that she used the blog as a resource.  You know what I did, of course. I…

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Want to Create Your Own Memoir Course? Here's a Syllabus to Get You Started

Melanie Springer Mock wrote a very insightful comment on my review of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress. I learned that she teaches memoir writing at George Fox University, which led me to request a copy of her syllabus. She was kind enough to share it. So I include it in its entirety below. A…

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These brass bookends were an inauguration gift from my brother- and sister-in-law.

Bookends: Satisfying, Surprising, or Stultifying?

I’ve been doing a lot of de-cluttering lately. Beginning of a new year, returning from a semester away, it’s time to cull books, which leads to rearranging wall hangings and other objects of art. Like these: I saw these beautiful bookends in a new way this week. They commemorate a momentous time in my life,…

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Jubilee Time: Chronos or Kairos?

This has been a week when I am back to keeping a schedule. Or trying to. Today a forgot a lunch date until 20 minutes past the appointed hour. So embarrassing! It was a very busy morning, starting with 6:30 birthday song chorus from Owen and Julia for Granddad’s birthday, then a trip to the…

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Teaching and Learning Across the Life Span: 2017 Here We Come!

As the new year begins, I am connected to young grandchildren and to the honors students, seniors at Eastern Mennonite University, I am preparing to teach this semester. Beyond this semester, I look forward to becoming a “grannynanny” again next fall.

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Who Wants to Take a Memoir Class? Tantalizing Syllabi from Pro Teachers

I’ve been a teacher since the age of three. That’s when I became a big sister. Ready or not, poor Henry got to pitch me softballs while I learned to bat. He was the first pupil in my classroom and the Watson to my Sherlock. Next fall I will be teaching again, and I’m excited….

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Lee Snyder's Memoir: Spiritual Reflections with Oregon, and Peace, at Center

Do you remember the scene in the movie As Good as It Gets when Jack Nicholson tells Helen Hunt, “You make me want to be a better person?” This book made me feel like that. Lee Snyder, whose life of academic and church leadership, culminating in the presidency of Bluffton University, 1996-2006, far exceeded what she ever…

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Two Memoir Course Syllabi from Poet and Professor Jeff Gundy

Melanie Springer Mock contributed our first course syllabus, and now, I am happy to say, we have two more from Professor Jeff Gundy of Bluffton University. Jeff has published numerous books and poems. His latest collecton on Amazon is Spoken among the Trees, which you can check out by clicking on the book cover. Jeff’s…

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