Authoring pandemic personal narratives: Middle level students’ representations of life during the 2020-21 school year

In this article, the authors share an account of an eighth-grade personal narrative unit designed to support students in composing accounts of life during the 2020–21 pandemic school year. The article provides an overview of the four phases that comprised this nine-lesson unit and the materials and resources used. Students’ voices, perspectives, and details from their compositions feature throughout the article. Implications for practice include considering the importance of life writing for both self and audiences and the meaningfulness of making space in middle level curricula for students to process their lives and respond to events in their world.