Ryan Sumner, 5th Grade Teacher

5th Grade Memoirs

Fifth grade students just finished writing memoirs during writer's workshop. Mr. Sumner's class would like to share some of their selections.

Coco’s Death

A time I felt brokenhearted was when my dog died.  One day I came back from school and I saw my brother outside, which is a rare place to see him at.  I asked him “Why are you outside?” and then he said “Coco (our dog’s name) is going to die soon.”  While tears filled my eyes I ran up to Coco, dropped on my knees and hugged her as hard as I could, and my sister did the same thing.  I felt her breathing fast and heavy as I cried and hugged her.  I wiped my tears off and said “Why is she dying, she’s only 1 years old?” Then my brother told me about her having a failing kidney.  My siblings knew that I loved and cared for her the most so they went inside and left me alone with Coco.  Later that same day, my dad came home and for once he had tears in his eyes.  I saw a look in her eyes that said goodbye and that’s when she took her final breath.  Everyone busted into tears!

Daddy

            I felt heartbroken when my daddy had a chance at death.  When I was about 6 or 7 my dad got cancer.  He got it somewhere around his neck.  He would sit in a brown rocking chair and have some tubes connected to him.  My own dad had cancer and was not good, and I knew it.  Every day I would see him in his chair and pray that I could see him the next day.  I’d wish he would be okay.  He had cancer for a while.  All of my prayers then came true.  My daddy was and still is okay.  My dad has a scar right under his neck, but it’s better to have a scar than to have cancer.

 Tiger Face

A time I’ll never forget is when I looked like a tiger.  We were in Pennsylvania on a road trip to see family.  My mom thought we should meet our godmother’s son and mother.

Everything was wet because it rained recently, but we still climbed slides and such.  Then everything went downhill.  I climbed the roof cover of the slide and started slipping.  I yelled for help, but no one heard.  I didn’t know I was that quiet.  I lost grip and my face met with the mulch.  I don’t know what really happened because my eyes were closed all through it and it happened way too fast.

I got up and my brain felt like it was escaping my head.  I was a little dizzy but I kept walking towards my mom.  She finally noticed me and freaked out! I started to taste a salty liquid in my mouth.  It was blood!  My forehead and nose were already swelling which really caught my mom’s attention.  My mom called my father and they rushed me to the nearest hospital.  They got lost and eventually made it.  After a while I was being cared for.  I sat on a bed the whole time except for when they took x-rays of my head.  When we got back to the room a device started making a noise.  My mom pulled something on it and nurses came running.  Turns out, my mom pulled a lever for heart attacks.  They were relieved I wasn’t having a heart attack.

I was fine in end.  I just had a very swollen nose and mulch shaped bruises on my forehead.  The bruises looked like tiger stripes, so people called me tiger face until they healed.