Class of 2017

English 12 Memory Box

Directions: During the last weeks of class during your final year of high school, you will reflect a bit on your life thus far and on your future. You must complete all of the following assignments. Your meticulously proofread assignments are due in your decorated shoebox on Tuesday, May 16, 2017. You must choose one item to present along with your decorated box for your final exam grade.

  1. Where I Stand: In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, sometimes it becomes important to be still and contemplate the people, places, events, and beliefs that we hold sacred in our lives, to run a mental checklist of what, who, and why we are who we are and we care for what we do. A sort of taking stock helps often to soothe our psyches and help us to carry on when things get us bogged down. Use the following prompts to create your checklist, writing in poetic, prose, or list format:

I am. . .

I like. . .

I am tired of hearing about. . .

I am in favor of. . .

I do not care for. . .

I believe that. . .

  1. If I Had My Life to Live Over
    Read Erma Bombeck’s essay “If I Had My Life to Live Over” and use it as a model to honestly and seriously evaluate your high school career. Following Bombeck’s model, compose a list of the ways you would have lived your life differently if you could look back and do things differently.
  1. Advice Letters: Students write letters of advice to upcoming freshmen, offering serious or humorous advice on how to survive high school. I collect the letters and give them to ninth grade teachers to be distributed to their classes the following fall.
  1. Notes to Staff: Students write either thank-you notes or notes of apology to teachers, administrators, custodians, coaches, or support staff members. They are collected and I actually give them to the designated staff member. They also place a copy in their box.
  1. Now I Am Eight-and-Ten Contemplate who you were one year (or two or five or eight years) ago and how you are a different person today because of a lesson that you had to learn the hard way. Using Housman’s “When I Was One-and-Twenty” as your model, write a two-stanza ballad about the advice you did not heed and the tragic or heartbreaking lesson you learned as a result.
  1. Time Capsule: Students fill these handouts and place in their box.
  1. Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge: The List: Read Mem Fox’s children’s book to pretend that you are old and have lost your memory. Generate a list of 10-20 items that could help you to remember your past. (The items don’t actually have to fit into a small box.) Share your list with a partner and help each other pick out the five most interesting items. Then write short vignettes describing the significance of each item.
  1. Graduation Speech:Students write their own graduation speeches.
  1. “My Truths” Collage- students create a collage of images and words that represent their personal truths.