Background and Demographics
Newark High School
Newark High School encompasses students in grades 9-12 from rural and urban areas of Newark and Wilmington. We are one of three high schools in the Christina School District. According to the State of Delaware's school profile's web site, our school has about 1,500 students. Our enrollment numbers have been decreasing over the past few years due to more specialty schools opening in the county. Students may choose to attend a school that specializes in the performing arts, math and science, technology, or the military. During the 2009-2010 school year, there were 49.5% White, 35.7% African American, 9.7% Hispanic, 5% Asian American, and 0.1% American Indian students. Other student characteristics are: 43.4% are low income, 8.6% are special education students, and 3.4% are English Language Learners. Most of the classes in school have approximately 26 to 30 students.
Business/Technology Department
I teach Business, Finance, and Marketing Essentials and Marketing Communications II to freshmen through seniors with various learning levels. My classroom consists of twenty five student computers, two whiteboards, and a mounted ceiling projector (connected to my computer). Most of what I teach is project-based and hands-on. This makes learning and applying the materials easier and livelier. Students will remember the key concepts since they are using the vocabulary words, making a connection, and presenting projects before taking tests. Many of the projects that are provided test their creativity. By learning about biography and entrepreneurship this will inspire my students to create their own life story and career pathway. My students will be using the computers to research and develop creative presentations to the class.
The Importance of Biography
Biography is important for high school students to learn about since it will provide an awareness of the life stories of others. In turn, this will encourage my students to see themselves as having stories in which they can shape their purposes. Learning about others will help define, develop, and create stories. Biography can be described as revealing a person by finding out what is inside, not just want is seen on the surface. Discovering a person's life story will help inspire my students to create their pathway.
Speaking about biography in class will set the stage for self-reflection. Looking at the past will help my students decide what steps they need to take in order to be successful in their lives. How one defines success is different for each individual. I encourage my students and support them in their decision to obtain a higher education, go into the military, enroll in training for a trade or acquire a job right after school. I explain to my students that they need to be able to stand on their own two feet and not have to rely on their parents or guardians to support them financially. My students must do something to achieve their purpose and goals.
According to Dictionary.com's web site a biography is: "1. a written account of another person's life. 2. an account in biographical form of an organization, society, theater, animal, etc." 2 When the word is broken down into two sections, this will help with further comprehension. The word is taken from the Greek language, according to the aforementioned web site. Bio means life. Life is a group of events that occur over time. I will relate bio to the word biology meaning the study of life and life organisms, as many of my students have taken or will be taking this course in high school. Graphia is an account or record. One is writing this information for others to read or listen to in order to reflect on this particular person.
I will include the following descriptions to assist in defining biography: theme, purpose/goals, connection to oneself, curiosities, discovery, facts, and point of view. A sense of biography will result if explained properly to my students.
Theme: There should be a theme or a pattern that one sees throughout a life while uncovering the person's biography. Has the person had to deal with many hardships or did everything always go her way?
Purpose/Goals: Biography shows a path that someone's life has taken over time. Students will be able to see that others have set goals for themselves. One life can inspire someone else. Walt Disney felt that it was important to entertain people. He had a perfect vision of an amusement park where the young and old could come together to enjoy rides. Walt wanted people to feel like they were in another land. There was an ultimate plan in mind. Walt was not going to stop until he reached this goal of bringing families together.
Connection to Oneself: How does a biographer reflect and see oneself in the person? Similar situations may connect the biographer with the person that they are writing about. Perhaps the biographer may have wished that they had the mind or resources to be able to do the things that this person has done in his life.
Curiosities: The author should want to explore and investigate the person's life. If the biographer is not curious, then the piece will be uninteresting to the audience. Individuals are inquisitive by nature. If you look on the rack of magazines at the supermarket, you will see that People, National Enquirer, OK! Magazine, and others reveal the truth and sometimes untruth of famous people's lives. These tabloid, human interest, or celebrity gossip magazines are very popular. Traffic on their web sites has picked up tremendously over the years. According to BlogSimplified.com, People ranked eleventh in the Top 100 United States print circulated consumer magazines for 2009. 3 This involves over 3.8 million subscribers. At over 15.5 million, there are many more online users than subscribers. Why are people buying these magazines? Plain and simple: People are curious. They want the intimate details of what is happening in other people's lives. This may make the reader feel as if she is friends with these celebrities or a part of her life. It can also provide an escape or distraction for the reader from her "ordinary" life.
Discovery: This will provide an insight into the mysteries of the person. Diving into the person's life will reveal the vital material for the biography.
Facts: The biographer needs to stick with facts and not opinions. Facts cannot be changed. An issued state or federal document is provided for birth certificates, marriage certificates, passports, and driver's licenses. Bank loans or accounts show correct names of individuals involved in the business, the business's name, addresses, and amounts of money owed or available. Names, dates, and locations on these types of documents are accurate.
Point of View: Some biographers focus on one time period or a specific event (what happened to a soldier stationed in Europe during World War II) while others may look at the person's professional career (how she got started, grew her business, and what the future looks like). What is the point of view of the biographer? The relationship that one has with the person plays a vital part. If a person is a friend of or related to the source, he may have a biased point of view. If I was writing about my grandmother, I will not want her to be viewed as an angry and mean person, unless I believed that this was true. I adored the woman who worked so many years in New York City and opened her home to my family and me during each visit. I will prove my decision based on accounts of visiting her and telling stories that will declare this as being true. The biographer should have empathy in understanding the person.
Obtaining information, finding out what to use it for, and discovering how to use it are essential to form a biography. A biography can be written at any time in the person's life, it is not only once the person is elderly or has passed away. I find reading obituaries to be very captivating where the public gets a glimpse into a person's life. It is fascinating to see how families want others to see their loved ones. Some obituaries are short and to the point, while others have pictures, graphics, and explain a longer story. A gravestone also tells a short biography by its etchings. Does this person want to be remembered for her birth date, death date, organizations that she belonged to, her occupation, or simply by her name?
Many pieces are interwoven together to form a biography. The history will appear once the person pries deeper and deeper and information is revealed. Biography is multi-layered. It involves creating, building, and inventing the portrait of a person.
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