As part of their first English LL unit on 'Memoirs,' Grade 7 students learned about memoirs, read and analyzed a variety of them, reviewed the elements of a story, and finally wrote a memoir based on an important learning moment in their life. In each of the 3 memoirs here in this collection, the students narrate a memorable moment from their life where they faced a conflict and turned it into a story!
“My First Northern Pike”
Kaleb W
“Boom!” I dropped my new blue and orange kayak at the edge of the shore. I ran back to the truck and yanked my fishing pole out of the bed of the truck. I was so excited to get out on the water and start fishing. I loaded my pole onto the kayak, along with my tackle box full of lures waiting to be used, my phone and snacks, but most importantly, my spirit.
“Can you push me onto the water?” I asked, eager to get on the water and start fishing.
“Okay, are you sure you have everything?” my dad questioned. I nodded my head up and down. He pushed me off the shore into the water. Immediately, I started paddling my way towards the other side of the pond. I looked back to see my brother, Gavin, struggling to get in the water. My dad walked over and gave him a good push and then he was floating on the water. I turned back forward and continued paddling. I paddled quickly, so I could get as many casts out as possible, as we only had a couple of hours until dark.
After what felt like hours of peddling I made it to the other side of the lake, Gavin not far behind me, and my dad not far behind him. I reached behind me and grabbed my new red pole with a baitcast reel, one of my Christmas gifts from last year. I’ve been waiting to use this new pole and kayak for months. I had a silver spoon with a neon green worm on the end of my line. Finally, I threw out my first cast and reeled it in, I felt a tug on the end of the line, I reeled quickly. There was some tension on the line, I reeled it all the way in and pulled it out of the water, Weeds. I pulled them off the hook and quickly threw out another cast. I reeled it in, I felt a tug on the line, I reeled it in to see more weeds. I violently tugged them off the hook.
“There are so many weeds,” I told Gavin. I looked over and saw him with a handful of weeds too.
“I figured that out,” he replied sarcastically. I smiled and threw out another cast, nothing. After a couple of more casts, I had only caught a couple of weeds. I sent out another cast, this time my lure didn’t come back. The lure flew off the end of the line.I immediately knew, I didn’t tie the lure on tight enough. I dropped my pole on the kayak, by my feet. Then I just sat there disappointed.
It had been a couple of minutes since I had lost my lure, when I heard splashing from behind me. I spun my head around and saw Gavin smiling with a fish, a pike, a thin fish with a white belly, and white markings all over its olive green body, and a long snout. My dad quickly paddled over to help him unhook the fish. But first he whipped his phone out and snapped a picture. Then he paddled over.
“Looks like he's about 22 inches,” Gavin yelled with excitement. I paddled over to take a look. The fish had a mouth full of knives, waiting to bite down on a finger. My dad was cautious taking the hook out to avoid the teeth. I saw he was using a green and black spinner. Finally, they got the hook out.
“Are you okay bud? I haven’t seen you cast in a while,” my dad told me.
“I threw my lure off a while ago,” I informed him.
“Do you want help tying on a new lure?” he asked. I nodded my head, I handed him my pole, and the lure I wanted tied on, a black and green spinner similar to what Gavin was using.
“Do you have any steel liters to put on?” he asked in a soft tone. I went digging through my tackle box, and found them at the bottom. I tore open the bag and pulled one out. I handed it to my dad. He tied it on while showing me step by step. Then I put the lure on the end of the steel liter.
“You should fish these banks,”he suggested.
“Thank you dad,” I said gratefully.
I paddled over to the spot I wanted to fish, kind of in the corner of the pond. I was eager to cast again, now that I knew they were biting. I threw a cast out quickly, knowing we didn’t have much time, maybe an hour until dark. First cast I didn’t get anything. I didn’t lose hope though. The next cast landed right between two patches of lily pads. My confidence shot up, I knew if I was going to catch a fish it would be on this cast. I began to reel, and sure enough I felt a tug from the end of the line. This tug felt different, I could tell it was a fish not weeds this time. It was so heavy it felt like a rock on the end of my line. I kept reeling, the fish was fighting. My pole was almost bent in half. My reel was screeching, I kept reeling. I reeled up next to the kayak then used the pole to lift the fish onto the kayak. I measured the fish at 20 inches. I looked for my dad, I saw him already paddling over to help me take the hook out. He came over and took a picture then, I got the hook out. I let the fish go, and I was so relieved, as I watched the fish swim away. I caught my second fish later that night.
I learned that “giving up will not get you anywhere in life”, if I had given up I would not have caught my first ever Northern Pike. This can also apply in other situations, say you are trying to make something new. If you give up after one setback, you will never make the new thing you are trying to create. You will never get rewarded. Therefore, “never give up, if you do, it won’t get you anywhere in life.”
“Lucky To Be Friends”
Justin S
I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t talk to me. On my first day at NIS, I was in first grade. When I entered the classroom, I saw everyone staring at me just like when a pokemon go player finds a rare pokemon. Ms.Bean, my homeroom teacher, introduced me to the whole class and I quietly sat down at the back of the carpet. I was expecting at least someone to talk to me but to my surprise, everyone just ignored my existence and just kept talking with their friends. I was shocked about how un-inclusive this class is. Nowadays, If a new student comes into a class, everyone will start talking to them and make it a big deal. They join a friend group they are comfortable with and stay there forever. And here I am, all by myself.
It’s lunch time, the most important and horrifying time for a new student. Who am I gonna sit with you ask me? The answer is no one. I sat down at an empty table and started to eat my lunch. At that moment, one of my classmates sat beside me. Her name was Sofia. She said she saw me by myself and thought I needed someone to talk to. The moment she told me that, I realized that she’s the kind of person I should be talking to and making friends with. After that, she talked to me about how all the energetic people are in the other class and lots of people in our class don’t really talk to new kids and people that they don’t know. Then, I asked her if they don’t talk to new kids and people they don’t know, how are they friends with other classmates? It looks like our homeroom teacher, Ms.Bean, made everyone introduce themselves at the start of the year and forced them to talk to other classmates. Ok, now I understand why no one talked to me in class.
Anyways, I asked Sofia if she could introduce the other class to me so I can make other friends. She was totally fine with that and we ran to where the other class was playing after we finished our lunch. When I saw the students in the other class, they were super sporty and LOUD. I could literally hear what they were saying from the other side of the school. They were like a natural born megaphone. One of them was a speaker. He copied everything the others said and was being very annoying. They were playing soccer and I could see and understand that they were good enough to play the middle school kids. Me? I had no idea what soccer was. I didn’t even know what other sports were. Basketball, do we play with baskets? But I couldn’t just ask them what sport you’re playing because I was 295% sure that they were gonna make fun of me. But I asked anyway. “What sport is that?” And they didn’t make fun of me by the way. The three boys that were playing soccer immediately started explaining soccer(or football) at the same time. “So, soccer is-”.”soccer is a sport where you kick the-” “where you kick the ball into the ball without” “without using your hands.” ”But the goalkeeper can use their hands to-” “to protect the goal from the ball going in.” “Bro, I’m explaining right now, why are you interrupting me?” “Sorry bro, but at least my explanation was easier to understand and more clear.” It was impossible to understand what they were talking about. Fortunately, Sofia understood everything they said and summarized what they were trying to say to me. Very understandable, way better than three people talking at the same time. Most supportive friend ever!
The important thing is, I eventually made more friends than Sofia did. But it was possible because Sofia taught me that it’s not talking to people you don’t know, it’s talking to people you want to be friends with. Now, I have lots of friends not just in my grade level but older grade students and younger grade students. Big thanks to Sofia.
“A Fish in a Sea of Tigers”
Youxi S
At the side of the brightly lit room with smells of plastic wafting up my nose, I stood there shifting my weight from one skate- foot- skate- foot skate and cracked my knuckles. I tried to make myself noticeable by getting closely to the glass and being as still as possible. The white line circling the big middle of the small room shone into my eyes, leaving a mark in my brain to see it for the next minute every time I closed my eyes. Kids skated around it with their eyes closed, barely even moving their legs back, going faster and faster without stumbling at all. The sound of their skates coming in contact with the hard plastic floor made a dull zzzz sound, sort of like the sound a mosquito makes, but with less buzzing more or zzzss-ing.
Here I was. Surrounded by 2 year old children who could not even go to the bathroom by themselves. Why did I even choose to come? I thought to myself, feeling hot as I watched the other younger kids execute moves perfectly. You know how in books where they tell you that when you're embarrassed your cheeks turn red? Wel
l, that doesn’t really happen in real life, at least not with me, but I certainly felt red. Heck, I would have given the school all of my money just to be with kids the same age as me. I felt like a fish in a sea of tigers- different and, well, weird. Have you ever been with a bunch of young kids? Well, if you haven’t, let me tell you something- they are ruthless.
“Are you an adult?” one of the kids asked. Snapping out of my day dream, I looked at them foolishly. “Well, are you or not? You look old. Are you older than the teacher?” The kids rapidly asked me questions, and I just looked at them dumbly. “Is this your first class? Are you dumb?” Well, the literal translation of what they said was dumb melon, but that isn’t really needed to explain the fact that this little kid was calling me dumb. The kid then decided to twirl gracefully around the circle, pointing her skates parallel and doing little waves with her arms.
Remembering what my teacher told me the day before, though, I knew that I had to ignore them and only care about myself. “We’ve had other big kids before, but they were all so embarrassed about falling and being with younger kids that they all quit. Don’t be like them. Everyone falls, even I fall,” he had said. Knowing that, I knew that I would persevere through this. I mean, learning this was for me, not for anyone else. Normally when a person comes up and calls me a dumb person, I would, well, get angry at them, but since this was a little 2 year old, I decided to let them off the hook. Just this once though!
“No,” I told the kid, “I’m just here to spy on you.” The kid gasped, then giggled and went away.
I watched as the teacher demonstrated how to do the things we were going to do. I watched as he flew across the room and stopped as gracefully as a swan. “And… begin,” he suddenly said. One by one, the other kids started going around the room, tossing hoops onto cones with their corresponding color, and repeating. While doing the same thing, I could feel with my non-existent third eye that the parents of the other children were all pointing and whispering about me, and sure enough, when I turned to look, there they were. Focus on yourself, I told myself in my head. I went round and round the track, so many times that the cones started to spin around and dance. Wait, nevermind. I was just dizzy. But then I thought, that wasn’t hard. In fact, it was a piece of cake! I could learn roller skating in no time.
Just as I thought that I was going to do this easy peasy lemon squeezy, the teacher put some mini cones and told us, “Go through them, but don’t touch any of the cones!” Of course, I was a little- okay, very skeptical about it. Could I do it? This was my very first lesson, after all. But seeing the little kids do it made me more determined that I was going to ace this. Going around the track, trying not to fall, I slowly tried to get past the cones and, what do you know? I MADE PAST ALL OF THEM AND THEN SUDDENLY I WAS AN OLYMPIC ROLLER SKATER AND I WON THE GOLD MEDAL! Well, not quite all of that, but I did get past all the cones without touching them!
As I went around the circle, I couldn’t help but feel happy for myself. I realized that I shouldn’t have been embarrassed about being with younger kids. We are all learning, and just because I’m older doesn’t mean that I can’t learn either. As I thought about it, I realized that I had just been skating around the circle and crossing the cones by myself, without any sort of thinking about it. That was great! As the lesson ended, I knew that I would be able to continue this class with no problem.
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