Biographies are big business. Whether in book form or Hollywood biopics, the lives of the famous, and typically not so well-known, fascinate us.
While it’s true that almost all biographies are about people who are within the public eye, typically the topic is less well known. Principally though, famous or not, the one that is written about has led a life that’s in some way incredible.
While your students will most likely have a basic understanding of what a biography is, it’s price taking a little time before they put pen to paper to tease out a crystal clear definition of precisely what a biography is.
Merely put, a biography is an account of somebody’s life written by somebody else. While there’s a style known as fictional biography, for probably the most part, biographies are by definition nonfiction.
Usually speaking, biographies provide an account of the topic’s life from the earliest days of their childhood, right as much as the present day or their loss of life, if the subject is deceased.
The job of a biography is more than just to outline the naked information of a person’s life.
Quite than just listing the basic details of their upbringing, hobbies, schooling, work, relationships, and loss of life, a well-written biography also needs to paint an image of the subject’s personality and as well as their experience of life.
Before students begin writing a biography, they’ll need to have a firm grasp of the principle options of the genre. An excellent way of initially determining how well they understand these essential parts of the genre is by asking them to compile a checklist.
At a minimal, their checklists should contain the items below. You should definitely help them fill in any gaps earlier than moving on to the writing process.
The aim of a biography is to provide an account of somebody’s life
Tense: Written prior to now tense (although ending might shift to the current/future tense)
Structure:
● Written in the third person
● Opens with a robust hook to seize the reader’s attention
● Usually written in chronological order
● Uses time connectives
● Covers: childhood, upbringing, training, influences, accomplishments, relationships, and so on – everything that helps the reader to understand the particular person
● Provides specific details about folks, places, occasions, instances, dates, etc
● Reflects on how occasions formed the topic
● Could embody some related photographs with captions
● Concludes with what the topic is doing now or what their legacy will be.
Sensible Activity:
As soon as your students have compiled a comprehensive checklist of the principle options of a biography, allow them to use it to assess some biographies from the library utilizing the checklist.
When students have assessed a number of biographies, take a while as a category to debate them. You possibly can base the discussion around the following prompts:
● Which biographies covered all of the criteria from their checklist?
● Which biographies didn’t?
● Which biography was the most readable in terms of construction?
● Which biography do you think was the least well structured? How would you improve this?
Taking the time to look at how different writers have interpreted the form will assist students to internalize the necessary criteria before making an attempt to produce a biography themselves.
Once students have a transparent understanding of the principle features of the biography, they’re ready to start work on writing a biography.
When the time does come to put pen to paper, make certain they’re armed with the next top tips to help ensure they’re as well prepared as possible.
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