Introduction
"From these fragments we construct what we believe to be the biographical truth." 1
I remember the moment I became a historian. I was in Inwood, Iowa, at my grandparent's farm. I was there with my mother helping my grandmother "simplify" her life through an inventory of the past. We had one pile marked "keep" and another "throw." As we went through two generations of photos, letters, receipts (my grandfather kept every receipt he was given), and clothing, a world began to open up to me. I saw letters between my grandparents written during the their three-year separation in World War II. They reference photos that my grandmother had sent along with the letters of my mother, newly born and growing in my grandfather's absence. As I read the letters, full of optimism and gratitude, I also understood the limitation of primary sources. That which is purposefully left unsaid: the loneliness of a being a farmer's wife left to manage the farm with a newborn baby in tow, and the terror of marching across Africa and Italy hoping to make it back and fearing the return. History comes to life in archives, not in textbooks. Students need to negotiate with the "real stuff" of history and grapple with the challenge of interpretation before they can understand that all text is incomplete and a matter of perspective requiring them to be an active reader who challenges both their own assumptions and those made in the text.
In order to get at the "real stuff" of archives, I have created a unit that explores the genre of biography through an examination of Sylvia Plath. This "biography primer" will serve as an introduction to biography as a genre, a way to examine the multiple tools used by biographers to bring their subjects to life, and a jumping off point to practice critical reading. Plath lends herself well to this type of study because of the wealth of primary source material (letters, journals, poems, etc), from Plath herself as well as others who knew her, and biographies with multiple interpretations. Even with the depth of study many feel that Plath herself has been lost in the story. This prompts the final question to be posed to students: Can we ever really tell the complete story of someone's life? Students will then use the tools learned in the primer to write a biography during a year-long project. The project asks students to spend the year writing the biography of a woman over 40. They will have multiple interviews with the subject and others familiar with her. They will research her life in the context of both her time and place through primary and secondary sources, and they will craft a narrative that tells a story rather than a list of events. My hope is that students, from their position as biographers, will begin to see how lives are constantly being defined and redefined.
Comments: