Autobiographical Writing

• English
• Further Education (Key Stage 5)
• Upper Secondary (Key Stage 4)
• Lower Secondary (Key Stage 3)
• GCSE

Introduction

Creative writing lesson on autobiographical writing. Features a variety of interactive elements - mind map/word cloud, open questions, drag and drop, plus quiz questions.

Instructions

There is an optional extension task here. 

Thou

Writing Reviews

Autobiographical writing 

Creative Writing 

English Language and Literature

Welcome to this lesson on autobiographical writing! I hope you and your learners find it useful!

Image from Freepik

Link the authors to their autobiographies!

Never

Diary of a Young Girl

Unleashed

Becoming

Spree

The Long Walk to Freedom

Just a fun drag and drop starter. You can generate some discussion here though about different types of writing, e.g. diaries, political memoirs, texts intended for private use or publication, celebrity autobiographies, ghost writers.....

What is autobiographical writing?

What is autobiographical writing?

Open question, low stakes activity, can link to last slide. 

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• Understand the key elements of autobiographical writing.
• Apply them to write your own autobiographies

Lesson Aims

The aims here are simple as the lesson is designed as a springboard into creative writing. Modify as you need!

Whose autobiographies you have read?

Autobiographies you've read

Depending on your learners this may be a very empty or very full slide! They often surprise me though so it's worth a go. You could always alter the question to being on 'whose would you like to read?'

What kind of linguistic and literary techniques do you expect to see in autobiographical writing?

?

?

How does a review influence you?

Draw on existing knowledge - your learners may have already looked at autobiographical writing in the past.

What is the purpose of autobiographical writing?

What is the purpose of autobiographical writing?

This is designed to give the opportunity to get into more specific answers than the usual 'inform'. You can also pivot into a discussion here about target audience.

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Look carefully at the following example of autobiographical writing. 

It's from Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave (1853).

The text is Northup's personal account of his kidnapping and subsequent enslavement in Louisiana, USA.

Extract

This text is out of copyright plus it's a really good text. The language is of course from the 19th century so you could replace the extract with another of your choice.

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Extract

I imagined this would be shared on student screens to make it easier to read. It would of course work as a handout too. 

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Now analyse the text as a group. 

What literary linguistic features can you see? Identify any typical features of autobiographical writing.

Launch your ideas onto the mindmap on the next slide!

Extract

This is a setup slide for the next activity.

INSTRUCTIONS

Analyse the text as a group. What literary linguistic features can you see? Identify any typical features of autobiographical writing.

THE EXTRACT

This is a different kind of mindmap. The idea is your learners can fire up ideas and if you want they can be placed next to the appropriate section of the text. The extract can be made to appear and disappear with the hotspot button if you want to run it more conventionally.

'fetters', 'kidnapped', 'robbed of liberty'

'But'

...my money and free papers were also gone!

'I' 'my'

Semantic field of imprisonment

Fronted conjunction

Exclamatory sentence

First person pronoun and determiner

Drag and drop activity that covers some terminology. It's not the focus of this lesson so I didn't want too much coverage. The main aim is to get your learners to 'spice up' their writing with techniques and their personalities.

How does Northup appeal to emotions in his autobiographical writing? Write a PEEL sentence!

How does Northup appeal to emotions in his autobiographical writing? Write a PEEL sentence!

This is a more focused consideration of terms in a low stakes framing. 

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Now it's your turn!

Choose a memorable moment in your life - first day at school for example.

It must be classroom suitable content whatever you choose....

Write an autobiographical paragraph.

Your Autobiographical writing 

HELP

Autobiographical writing:

• should be written in first person
• must be based on something that really happened
• should use emotive language
• should use linguistic and literary devices to enhance your writing
• can include direct speech
• should be based on something interesting or noteworthy 
• Usually written in past tense.

Timed writing exercise - either for word processor or handwriting.

Exchange your work with the person next to you. Find what you think is the best bit and highlight it. Write why you think it is good.

Peer Review and Feedback

Encouraging peer review and feedback. Reflecting on creative writing is always a good idea!

You could ask them to find something that needs improving but this would depend on the group.

Write or take a picture of your best bit of your autobiographical writing and why it is effective

Write or take a picture of your best bit of your autobiographical writing and why it is effective

This is deigned to be flexible to your learning environment or student preference.

Which of the following is autobiographical writing written in?

Autobiographical writing is written in....?

1. First person
2. Second person
3. Third person
4. Third person limited

Quiz slides - an opportunity to go into more detail about these if your learners need a refresher.

Autobiographical writing is going be based on real experiences

Autobiographical writing is based on real experiences

1. True
2. False

I have this here because I always have someone who makes things up!

Which of the following is not a typical feature of autobiographical writing?

Which of the following is NOT a typical feature of autobiographical writing?

1. Emotive language
2. Rhyme
3. subjective opinion
4. First person

Again an opportunity to discuss these in more detail with this quiz question.

What are the three most important qualities of autobiographical writing?

What are the three most important qualities of autobiographical writing?

This is to prepare for the optional assignment. 

Ask about something you want to know more about

Ask one question about something you want to know more about

Low stakes opportunity for learners to find out anything they're unsure of. 

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Write a 500 word mini autobiography about an important time in your life.

Please adhere to the genre conventions and use linguistic and literary techniques.

Extension work

Optional extension work - modify however you think it works for your learners.

How confident do you feel about writing an autobiographical piece?

How confident do you feel about writing an autobiographical piece?

😒🙁😐🙂😃

A poll exit ticket to round off the lesson.