Personal Writing Activity: Investigation of Students’ Visual Memory and the Oldest Childhood Recollections

The personal writing genre can provide valuable space for students to start from what they know best, themselves. In this qualitative study, middle school students’ earliest memories and the kinds of remembered memories were tried to be investigated. Students’ earliest memories were analysed based on their written personal writings. In addition, how well students remembered the names of the objects shown to them in a short time was analysed. Thus the study also aimed to investigate which objects were remembered by students in a quick learning activity. The participants of the study were 21 struggling middle school students participated into a summer project titled as “Let's Discover Our Thoughts: What Do I Know and How Do I Use My Knowledge?” Data was collected from students’ writings reflecting their earliest memories and lists of remembered items’ names. The study's findings yielded that the most remembered feeling was being sad. Other reflected emotions were feeling happy, embarrassed, and tired. Analyses of the data also showed that the most remembered items were oranges, playing cards, and lemons. According to the used memorization test, among struggling middle school students only two students had good memorization skills.