Objectives
The overall objective for this unit is to present opportunities for students to write autobiography, memoir, narrative, and biography. Students will be able to write an autobiographical story of a memorable experience in their lives using pictures and prose. Students will be able to identify narrative and biographical writing by listening to two or three versions of Frederick Douglass's life. Students will be able to compare these stories to understand the author's theme or focus of Douglass's life story in each version.
Students will explore narrative as a form of writing about one's experiences. I will introduce narrative by modeling examples focusing on people from the past and the present. We will discuss the elements of narrative and discern what is included and not included in this genre. We will also look at biography as a form of writing about a subject's life, usually from birth to death, using the same format of model and discussion and then compare and contrast these two forms of writing. Students will then listen to escaped slave narratives and share reactions to these stories. Using a storyboard, students will imagine and draw scenes of what a day in the life of an escaped slave may have looked like. Once completed, the storyboard will be used to write a narrative.
Finally, in small groups, students will use their listening and speaking skills to interview each other and through flexible grouping, students will write short biographies using information from class created questions. Students will listen to the biographies and discuss similarities and differences. As an assessment piece, students will interview a family member and create a short graphic biography.
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