Looking for a way to engage her senior high school students and help them write personal narratives, Olentangy High School English teacher Erin Centa stumbled upon Six-Word Memoirs six years ago: “I searched for interesting ways to introduce storytelling and your magazine popped up. I loved the idea and have been using it ever since.”

Mrs. Centa uses Six-Word Memoirs to get her students to think about their personal story in a creative way. She’s found that “kids are kind of ready to pour their hearts out.” To help them along, Centa uses Six-Word Memoirs to “springboard them into thinking about who they are.” These memoirs aren’t limited to pencil and paper in her classroom. She encourages her students to pick a meaningful object on which to write their stories — whether that be a soccer ball, a model car, or an old running shoe.

The lessons gained from the Six-Word Memoir Project have also become personal for Mrs. Centa: “It has been kind of therapeutic to me,” she explains. “I dealt with the loss of a child a little over three years ago, so the Hemingway story really resonated with me after that. Six-Word Memoirs helped me get my feelings out while dealing with that loss.” Centa is referring to the legendary six-word novel that Hemingway reportedly penned, which inspired the creation of our Six-Word Memoir Project: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” 

“No, I do not speak Indian.”

“Don’t say much, think too much.” and
“Just want to see the world.”

Recently, Larry Smith, founder of the Six-Word Memoir Project, traveled to Olentangy High to help show students what Six Words is all about. The seniors shuffled into the spacious auditorium and skeptically avoided the front row, but moments later, armed with sharpies and paper, they shed their hesitance — ready to tackle their personal narratives in just six words.

This short-form of personal narrative development is particularly timely for seniors, many of whom are tackling the process of writing college essays: “They think they have to have some huge life-altering event to be interesting; Six-Word Memoirs helps them see that the little things are interesting.”

Although her students’ time at Olentangy High School is wrapping up, their personal explorations are just beginning. We’re grateful that Mrs. Centa has been introducing the benefits of Six-Word Memoirs to her high school seniors for years, building a strong foundation for the next generation’s creative minds.
—Hailey Stangbye

Teachers! Since we first launched the Six-Word Memoir project, educators across the spectrum have found Six Words to be a terrific classroom assignment and catalyst for self-expression. At our Six in Schools section we celebrate students’ work from classrooms around the world. Our Six Words for Schools workbook is the first in our suite of school-based teaching tools, and launched our Six Schools website, a place solely for teachers to share their classrooms’ work with other educators globally. Check it out! Let us know what your classroom is up to and we might feature your students’ work on our blog.