Thank you, Kathi, for leaving me a comment! It makes me eager to read your blog as soon as you reset your password. With that adventure (resetting the password) in mind, I am going to recommend some passwords that might be memorable:
rememberthispassword
dontforgetyourpassword
canyourememberthispassword
iremembermypasswordwassomethinglikethis
iusedtoremembermypasswordbutnowiforgotit
noonereadsyourbloganyway
dontputbananasintherefrigerator
Liz, I loved your list of memoir prompts. Kathi, Liz is teaching a memoir writing class out in WA. I'll post the prompts here so readers (Kathi) can adapt them to their (her) own needs (5th grade writers):
Memoir Prompts
- Record the history of an item you consider to be a family heirloom. The
heirloom doesn't have to be valuable, so long as it is important to the
family.
- Write about a childhood family tradition. Write about your current
traditions and the thoughts that you want to convey through them.
- Answer the following: Do you have a mentor? Are you a mentor for someone?
Tell about your relationship.
- Write about a person that you love.
- Write about your religious tradition (or lack of religious tradition)
growing up. Continue by writing what you believe in your life today and the
personal philosophy you live by.
- Write a recollection about a friendship you had at some point in your
life.
- Write about a person you have lost contact with. Write first about your
relationship. Continue by writing about why, or if, you would like to
reconnect with that person again.
- Write about a childhood pastime.
- Did you grow up with pets? Write about a specific memory.
- Write about an event or time that you made a deliberate change for
yourself. Write about what motivated you to make the change, and how you
think that change has affected your life?
- Write about an employment that you had which you either learned a great
deal from, or which you dreaded. Write in a narrative form.
- Write the story of how you came by a scar. Be sure to describe the scar,
including its location.
- Write about your memory of a pleasant time with one or both of your
parents.
- If you attended college, talk about how you decided on your college
major. Were you influenced by your parents? Future job prospects? A guy/girl
you liked? If you didn't go to college, talk about what influenced your
life after high school.
- Were you ever in a contest or competition? What prompted you to
participate? What made the experience meaningful to you?
- Write about how you felt the first time you were fired from a job or had
to quit.
- Write about any unexpected opportunities that came up this year. Are
there specific things that you had done prior to the opportunity that made
it possible, or allowed for you to act upon it?
- Have you ever received something from a contest or giveaway? Try to
recall something you have "won" and what you did with your winnings.
- Write about why you decided to date/ marry the person you are
dating/married to.
- Write about the your high school/college graduation.
- Write about your current family relationships.
- Write about a career negotiation that you have experienced.
- Describe how your life was affected by a war that occurred in your
lifetime.
- Write about your current projects and what you are accomplishing right
now.
- Has any one in your family suffered from a chronic illness? Write about
your experience.
- Write about your plan for your "elder years". Also, what are your wishes
about your funeral arrangements?
- What are the different ways you've celebrated the New Year throughout
your life? Do you have a traditional way you celebrate New Years with your
friends and family? How has that tradition changed over the years?
- Everyone goes through hard times. Write about one of the hard times of
your life. Write about how you overcame the hard time (or didn't).
- Have you ever attended a school or class or military reunion? Write about
the experience of seeing people you once knew well but haven't talked to in
years. Were they the same people now as then? Were you? Did you find
yourself falling back into your old role from that time period?
- Describe the biggest and/or most important project you worked on for an
employer. How long ago was that? Is the final product still in use?
- Tell about a major storm you survived. What season was the storm? How did
the season affect how you managed? Was it unbearably hot or cold? Did your
neighbors help you? Did you help your neighbors? How did the storm and its
aftermath affect your life from then on?
- What did you drink as a child? Tea? Coffee? Milk? Juice? Kool-aid? How
did your drinking habits change as you grew up? Do certain drinks remind you
of specific times in your life? What are the most exotic beverages you've
sampled?
- Do you have any friends you've known since elementary school? High
school? College? Previous jobs? Have you stayed in touch all that time? Or
did you have some periods "off and on"?
- Recall the firsts in your life: first boyfriend/girlfriend, first day of
school, first paycheck, first home on your own, first child. You get the
idea. Make a list of the "firsts" in your life, then pick one write a short
(or long!) story about it.
All's well that ends well.
BORING FACTOR: ***(Three Stars, on a rising scale of 5 Stars=snoozer)
