The Six Words concept has followed English teacher Andrea Vinikoff throughout her life, starting in high school and continuing in college when she was assigned Six-Word Memoirs in some of her classes. When the Virginia Beach native became a teacher, she naturally returned to the form by introducing it to her students. For the past four years, Vinikoff has been using Six Words with her sixth graders at Princess Anne Middle School in Virginia Beach, Virginia. “I felt like it was a sign that it kept coming up and was being used in all of these creative ways related to the curriculum. Because I had so much fun creating Six-Word Memoirs, I decided to find ways to incorporate them into my classrooms,”  she says.

This year, Vinikoff saw a connection between the unit she was teaching and Six-Word Memoirs and jumped at the opportunity to put the medium to use. “The unit theme is called ‘The Role of the Writer,’” explains Vinikoff, “so we have a lot of emphasis on an author’s purpose and biographies and autobiographies.” Recently, the students read “The First Skateboard in the History of the World,” a short, kid-friendly memoir written by Betsy Byars. “That’s when I remembered Six-Word Memoirs,” recounts Vinikoff with excitement. She showed her students examples, including those on our website and her own, before challenging them to create their own six-word stories.

Once they were finished, the students were excited to show off their work. “They’re usually really proud, so when they have their own ownership involved they really want to make sure it’s done well,” she says. The sixth graders paired their Six-Word Memoirs with illustrations to display: “They’re very visible throughout the hallway, so as the kids are passing by they’re able to look at them and comment on them, and I get teachers’ responses that they’re really impressed.” Some students even got involved with sixwordmemoirs.com, taking to the website to post some of their own brief personal stories.

“Mistakes are proof that you’re trying.”

Vinikoff has felt the many benefits of using Six-Word Memoirs in the classroom. “For me, as a teacher, it’s really important because I have this passion for writing and I try to instill it in my students.” She adds that the medium teaches students about meaningful word choice and how to successfully implement adjectives and contradictions. She notes that Six-Word Memoirs has aided her in teaching “a wide variety of English skills” in a creative way. Some of the students’ examples include: “Lowest points will always bring hope,” “Dreams never work without any actions,” “Any improvement starts with hard work,” “Family makes me a better person,” and “Mistakes are proof that you’re trying.”

This passionate sixth-grade teacher and her students exemplify how Six-Word Memoirs benefits both educators and learners. For Vinikoff, Six-Word Memoirs is a creative tool to ignite an interest in writing in her students: “As an English teacher I’m aware that my class isn’t always the favorite. So, when I can find something that’s engaging and gets them excited about writing, I feel like I’m doing a good job.” —Amanda Gaglione