The Benefit of Biography
This unit will focus on the use of biographies. This will be the method in which we will address the historical figures and lives as they connect to events on the historical timeline. Not only can we address the “False Narrative”11 of U.S. History using biographies, but we can also teach lessons and virtues through these stories.12 These benefits are outlined in the article “Why Teach Biography” by Bernice Learner. Using biographies allows teachers to make a way for students to find themselves within the history curriculum which often omits them. “By encountering such individuals, students may learn…others who have gone before them have found ways of coping, of overcoming hardship...”.13 Biographies build our students’ historical lenses by analyzing and debating material. Students will utilize these biographies to understand the complexities of history and the human story.
“Encouraging children to pose and answer for themselves such questions is the ultimate aim of schooling. Biography can help us reach this aim. A worthy life makes for the most compelling of stories. It illustrates that we humans are the sum of our choices, that we each have the power to shape our own destiny”.14
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