Creating Lives: An Introduction to Biography

Objectives

At the end of this unit students will understand the basic principles of oral history and biography as outline in the previous section. They will accomplish this by conducting interviews of the Emery community,writing biographies of their subjects, and categorizing those biographies based on themes. Within each category, students will be required to analyze how the topic has changed over time. For example, students might describe how school sports have changed over time and what outside factors, such as Title IX and the economy, have impacted those changes.

I want my students to gather the stories of as many different representatives of our school community as they can, such as alums, teachers, administrators, janitors, food service staff, school board members, and parents. By interviewing a diverse group of people, my students will gain a more complete and complex understanding of their community. They will learn how to see Emery Secondary School from many perspectives in order to come to some truth(s) about the institution.

I like to begin my units with essential questions. These questions lend themselves naturally to the investigative nature of oral history which is not as easily achieved by presenting an objective written as a statement (i.e. "students will be able to..."). In addition, these questions can work as both formative and summative assessments. As formative assessments, students can reflect on their understanding of these questions at several points in the research process. I can monitor their progression and they can monitor their own changing answers to these questions. As a summative assessment, these questions can take the form of a final quiz or reflective essay in which the student articulates her understanding and knowledge of the topic. In my classroom, I find that students do best when the expectations are clearly laid out from the beginning and they can continually reflect upon their own learning.

This unit will be divided into two different sections, the first will focus on grasping foundational topics while the second will focus on applying those concepts to our specific oral history project. This will give my students opportunities to read, comprehend, and analyze good models of biography before they are expected to write one of their own. Before students can conduct their own oral history project, they will need to understand the elements of biography and oral history and why they are useful. The essential questions for this section are:

• What is biography?
• What are some of the key elements of a biography?
• What is oral history?
• How does oral history help us tell a more a complete story of the past and present?

The essential questions for the second section are:

• How has Emery Secondary School changed over time? (consider physical, social, demographic, and academic changes)
• How have historical events affected Emery Secondary School?
• How do different point of views shape your understanding of a theme?
• What legacies have people left and how have they helped shape our community?

When I created these essential questions, I needed to keep in mind the California State Standards. For example, our standards state that students must "demonstrate an understanding of the elements of discourse (e.g., purpose, speaker, audience, form) when completing narrative, expository, persuasive, or descriptive writing assignments." In addition, point of view is another important standard that plays an important role with oral histories. Oral histories are often written in the first person, "but there are problems with a first-person narrative. For example, the person telling the story may leave out some information that the reader needs in order to understand the story." ⁶ Cynthia Brown discusses her experience of using point of view when she wrote Ready From Within; a student guide for writing oral history: "For a while, I thought I could solve the problem of not enough background material by telling the story in the third person...By using this device I could add what I wanted to, because I had become the narrator." Ultimately however, Brown felt "It seemed to lack authenticity, even if there were more details." ⁷ Although I agree with Brown, I also feel that writing the oral histories in the third person, as a biography, will help my students grasp the elements of discourse and other standards better because they will have to assert a position as an author. It is easy for my students to "hide" behind the voice of another person, especially an adult. I think they will learn more about their own voice as a writer if they are forced to make choices about the organization and writing style of the text.

There are many opportunities for learning that are not associated with our state standards or specific to an English class but are equally as important learning objectives. For example, I want students to be able to engage in meaningful dialogue with adults outside of their family, learn to take notes effectively, ask open-ended questions, and listen carefully. By doing so, my students will become more involved in their community and engaged citizens.