Biography and autobiography

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 2

Objectives of writing an (auto)biography

Students write about the experiences of one of the main characters from Refugee as if they were the person themselves/ or writing about the character's life story to an audience. 

For an autobiography students are expected to write a personal narrative, and understand why it is important to understand a person’s history.

Students use elements of the writing process to compose a text such as:                  

 brainstorming, planning, drafting, revising and finalizing written work

The finalization of the written (auto)biography will be a writing test.

The student will also learn and use the handwriting conventions: Capitalization, punctuation and spelling.

Biographies written about another person's life story

President Bill Clinton nominated Ruth Ginsburg as an associate justice of the Supreme Court on June 22, 1993.

She was the second female and the first Jewish female justice of the Supreme Court. She eventually became the longest-serving Jewish justice

An autobiography is the story of someone’s life, written by that person.

what pronouns would you use when writing an autobiography?

From whose point of view is a biography written?

Communication

chapter 2 Oxford International Approach p. 33

What ways are there to communicate?

Imagine life if you were deaf or/and blind.

 -What would you miss?

 -How would you communicate?

*How was your day? (Deaf) (Blind) (Deaf &Blind)

What other ways are there to communicate

Imagine what it is like to grow up not being able to learn from other people by listening to what they say and watching what they do. 

- How else could you learn about the world?

- Why is learning to use language so important?

- Can you think of other situations in which not being able to communicate makes someone feel left out?

Helen Keller

What was the “ah ha moment” that came?

Why do they mention that Helen Keller’s life story really challenged peoples views on disability?

assignment

Read the autobiography of Helen Keller and re-write it into a biography

Homework

Read the chapters of your chosen character.

Find 10 vocabulary words from the book that you must use in your (auto)biography correctly. 

These words must be part of the vocabulary words that we learnt while reading the book, you may highlight them in your final version.  

in what grammar tense is an autobiography written?

what is your introduction about?

organise your information

Paragraph 1: Beginning ( includes introduction)

Paragraph 2, 3 and 4 : Middle

Paragraph 5: End ( includes conclusion)

Write your introduction

Start with a sentence that gets your reader's attention.

- state an interesting fact about the character

- Write a quote

- Ask a question

No talking / individually

who is the character

Talk about who you are ( or who the character is) 

where and when you were born.

Who your parents and siblings are etc.

State what your autobiography is going to be about?

The threat to their safety:

write down at least three  events from your character's story thateaxplains how they became a refugee

The Journey:

write down at least three events in the character's journey that changed the course of their lives