First Class

I taught my first class at Mercy Retirement Center last week. It was an amazing experience. I was warned that there might only be three or four people there, but there were about ten. Even people who could not physically write came.
They all want to tell some aspect of their history be it their own story or their families story. I love hearing these tales they can tell such wonderful stories about the bay area, like when Hayward was just farmland, or ferries went across the bay, but would regularly catch fire!
That said, it will be a challenge to get them to tell one story at a time. This last week I had them write about their names. I did not set strict standards for this assignment, but almost every person managed to outline their whole life history in the space of ten minutes, except for one woman who outlined her entire day. :>
This week I think I will work on having them tell one story. I met many of them previous to the first class and heard bits of their stories before. They all seem to come back to one event in there life that they want to write about. I am thinking about asking them specific questions about these events just to focus them on something. Later I think I might use Jin's lesson about sensory details.
Does any one have any suggestions about how to get the students to focus on one story?

Right now it is really fun getting them writing. Charlie, who is one of the activities directors there said he was impressed with how open people were and was very touched with the stories they told. One of the other program directors had said that they had tried doing a creative writing class before but people were very uncomfortable telling their stories. That does not look like it will be a problem with this class. It is quite a job to make sure there is time for everyone to talk.

My other challenge are the students who cannot physically write. They have a whole variety of reasons from sight to arthritis to pre Alzheimer issues. Last week I transcribed for one of them and Charlie did for another. It was not until after the writing assignment we found out another woman could not write. For last week, she told the class a story, but I am not sure what to do about the coming week so that she can fully participate. Mercy has limited staff and I only have so many hands.

I also realize that so much of my library is about younger people. I want to find some books about/ by people a little older to take my readings from.