I thought they might work. After all, these folks didn't learn to write the way we teach now. They probably came out of English classes with 5 paragraph essays, literature anthologies, and grammar Nazis. Most of us did. So, perhaps many of the teaching strategies developed after 1970 would be liberating, doable, and most of all welcome. So, I proposed the idea of teaching a writing class for older folks to the director of my local community center, As luck would have it, Portland Parks and Rec already had a "Writing From Memory" class on the books. It just hadn't been taught for a while. I interviewed. I developed some curriculum. I taught the class at one of the 5 week sessions. Slowly, it gained un popularity andI went from3students to 8. Perfect. With i hour sessions once a week, that is barely enough time to review something, teach a skill, and have the people read and get feedback for their work. ...
Personal observations of one writer. Frequent references to pop culture, blues music and lifetime truths.