Biography

Biography Project

Ha! It’s biography project season. I know you have all been waiting so long for this. You will have the opportunity to generate questions about someone who has made a splash in our country’s history. Who has unified people amidst great hardship? Who has taken on the dividing techniques of those in power? After you record some questions, we’ll work together to locate high quality resources about your person. You will be asked to record and organize information using a graphic organizer. From your detailed organizer, you will use your writing skills to craft a detailed biography and share it with the class.

The Procedure:

1. We will share our findings from our “People Who Made Change” lists. You will be asked to choose someone from these lists (or if another inspiring person is contacting you and asking you to write a biography on them, you just may be able to do so) and begin writing questions about this person. What interests you about this person? How did they inspire others?
2. Categories. Next is time to categorize your questions to see what kind of information you are looking for. Biographies usually have categories including childhood events, struggles, the person’s vision, and how they went about creating change in the world. You may choose to change or add new categories when you learn more about your person. Together we will look at a sample graphic organizer.
3. Time to find high quality resources. Try the American Library Association for Kids site, or bartleby.com, or biography.com. Adding “for kids” or “young readers” to your search will direct you to useful websites to begin learning about your person. More complicated websites are useful when you are searching for specific details.
4. Begin filling in/creating your graphic organizer as you learn about your inspiring person. You will conference with peers and teachers to get feedback about your findings. We’ll ask each other questions to help us direct our research.
5. Use your highly detailed graphic organizer to draft an essay with strong introductory, middle, and concluding paragraphs. You will have the opportunity to conference with peers/teachers prior to writing your final draft.

We may discover other things we want to add to/change to the project as we go along. Final drafts will be due during the last week of April.