The Art of Biography

Classroom Activities

Each of the individual activities described below (identifying character traits, researching a famous person, and writing an autobiography) should take no less than two weeks to complete. They can occur simultaneously in reading, writing, and social studies because the ideas support all curriculum standards and expectations.

Identifying character traits

While engaging in the Reader's Workshop Process, students will be making the connection between the challenges characters face in a story to the challenges they face as readers. Second grade students will study characters in stories in order to better understand the story, and eventually to make connections among characters and learn about greater themes in life. Second grade students are expected to "demonstrate understanding of characters, setting, or plot and to describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges." Students start with identity and identify traits or characteristics of the main characters in the story. (16)

1. After reading a biography to students I will model for them how to complete a + graphic organizer where they note the characters, setting, problem and solution (see Appendix III). We will have already used this graphic organizer throughout our fiction unit so students will be familiar with it, but I will show students how to apply it towards biography. In the character box, students not only need to write the name of the person, but also character traits or attributes they learn about him/her. In the setting box they need to describe the years and places he/she lived and anything significant they know about that time period and place. In the problem and solution boxes students may write about problems or struggles the person encountered and then accomplishments and how the person overcame any struggles. At the bottom there is a section for notes for students to write additional information, connections, and questions. This is where I want students to think about how the person's challenges may compare to theirs and what character traits the biographical person exhibited that helped him/her overcome the challenge.

Procedurally, I will probably do two short read aloud books over two days modeling this process so students can become familiar with completing the graphic organizer before they have to do the work independently or with a partner.

2. Students will then self-select biographies to read and create a graphic organizer on. I want them to choose their own so they have an invested interest in the person they are reading about. I will make sure to have numerous biographies available in my classroom for them to choose from. I will probably work with a group of struggling readers to help them through this process.

Students will repeat this process over the course of a couple of weeks, setting individual or a class goal of how many biographies they should read to gain an understanding of the genre, of various people, and of history.

Researching a famous person in history

After students have read a variety of biographies, they need to choose one historical person and become an expert on that person. Students will access various sources of biographical information in order to accomplish this goal, and they can use the Biography Graphic Organizer (see Appendix II) to keep track of the information they are learning.

1. They can read a biography book along with an internet article about the person and identify different styles the authors of the two sources used to convey the information about the person. The second graders can also make judgments about why one author chose to include certain information.
2. My classroom website will have direct links to biography websites (see Technology Integration under the Teaching Strategies section) that are on a second grade reading level. Students will have computer time to look up more information about their person beyond what may be contained in one or two books we have available in our classroom collection.
3. Another goal of the plan for the Reading Workshop is for second grade students to engage in nonfiction reading clubs and for students to become experts around a particular topic exploring a variety of texts on that topic with a peer. Students will design the time to meet and goal for what learning they want to share during that meeting. The main task of the club includes "reading and talking about books, ponder questions, develop ideas, develop theories, and celebrate discoveries."
4. This directly aligns to the common core standards for second grade students, which include "follow agreed-upon rules of discussion, build on others' talk in conversations by linking their comments and remarks to others, and ask for clarification and further explanation as needed about the topics and texts under discussion." After students have built their confidence of sharing information with their reading club they will create a published piece which records everything they have learned and present it to the class.
5. Second grade students are expected to "participate in shared research and writing projects like reading a number of books on a single topic to produce a report." I will give students the flexibility of deciding how they want their published report to look like, whether it's a written narrative, PowerPoint presentation, poster board, cereal box, song, collage, etc. The students will have several days and access to a variety of materials to complete this work and time will be set aside in the schedule for individual presentations about the information they learn.

Writing an autobiography

One of the strategies I described is creating a timeline. This is a springboard for students to compose their own autobiography or memoir. Second grade students are expected to "write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

1. I will start this lesson by introducing beginnings and having students think about how they want to start their work – do they want to write it sequentially, do they want to hook their reader with a short story describing a memory.
2. Students will list character traits they want their reader to know they have and then think about a story or stories they can tell to describe how they show ownership over each trait.
3. Students will write about a flaw in their character to show that they are human.
4. We'll talk about endings. Students will first engage in a class discussion about endings and how they should end their autobiography. If they're struggling for an idea, they can be encouraged to re-read the endings of biographies or other selected books. They can also think about ending with a wish or a hope for their future. I'm hoping students will generate a list of really good ways to end their autobiography.

Throughout all of these brainstorming and mini-lesson sessions, students will be writing down their ideas for their narratives. Then they will take them through the writing process, revising their work independently, with a peer and with me, making sure to have consistency and a common voice throughout. Finally, students will publish their work, either writing a clean copy or typing their narrative using a word processing application.

Through hearing biographies read as well as engaging in reading biographies students will begin to understand and ask questions about events and things that happen in history. They will build an understanding about the world and what type of person they want to become in the world and how they want to contribute to make it a better place. The autobiography they write will not only reflect who they are as a writer, but who they are as a person, and their history will be recorded because each of my students is important.