Biographies, Readers' Workshop, and Technology Infusion

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Biography means "writing about life." There are many reasons to introduce students to biographies.

1. Biographies provide a historical perspective of people who braved challenges in a vastly different time or social period.
2. Biographies provide life lessons gleaned from others' life experiences and behaviours. 
3. Biographies create empathy and understanding of others. The story of someone who may have lived in a different era or with a different background exposes students to things they may never experience. Reading another’s story helps them to appreciate their differences or find comfort in our sameness. 
4. Biographies extend students' view into the future. Hearing about what others have accomplished despite their circumstance encourages them to dream. It gives them hope that they can meet the challenges that come their way. 

There is no shortage of biographies written for elementary students. As the students read biographies, there are many web tools and apps to help students delve into the lives of fascinating people.

ThingLink allows the creation of interactive images by adding video, music, and text to uploaded images. Take pictures and video of events within the historical era which impacted the subject's life. Once media has been collected, hotspot areas on the ThingLink to provide more information.

Blabberize
Blabberize is a web tool which creates a talking picture of person’s face. Upload a picture of the subject of the biography and add a hotspot to move with the recording. After customizing the picture, record a short biography assuming the role of the historical figure.


Timeline Interactive

This interactive from Read Write Think creates a graphical representation of a subject's life by displaying items sequentially along a line.

Adobe Spark Post
Adobe Spark Post is a free online and mobile graphic design app. Create beautiful images that help tell the subject of a biography's story by highlighting infamous quotes.

 

Bio Cube
This interactive tool from Read Write Think allows students to develop an outline of a person whose biography they have just read. Specific prompts ask students to describe a person's significance, background, and personality.



View a detailed unit of study on Biographies. Students will examine the big ideas of narrative and expository biographies and develop skills and strategies to enhance reading fluency and comprehension. Students will explore cause-and-effect, sequence, language cues and conventions, visualization, determining importance, and synthesis.

Biographies

Biography means "writing about life." In my newest unit of study entitled Biographies, readers will apply their knowledge about reading narratives, and apply these understandings to a different structure called narrative nonfiction. Readers will read to learn not only about the significant character, but also the group of people that person represents and the groups of people that person impacted. That is, readers read biographies not only to learn about specific famous figures, but also to learn about the world in which they live and to extract life lessons. 

The unit is divided into three bends: 

1. Connect their knowledge of fictional story structures to focus on the deep comprehension and synthesis of story elements of narrative nonfiction.
2. Examine the unifying idea or message behind a life story, learning that a biography is often a commentary on society at large. 
3. Apply their understandings about biographies to ease them into understanding the structures and patterns of other forms of narrative nonfiction. 

The primary goal of this unit of study is to help students become stronger readers. The main objective is not to learn content, but rather to learn how to read the genre of biography. Reading skills, rather than the details of a remarkable person’s life, are the emphasis. Readers will use story grammar to determine importance, to synthesize, and to analyze critically across long stretches of text, ultimately growing theories about them.

Throughout the twelve sessions, readers develop the ability to find connections, explain the meaning of unexpected actions, and make arguments about the significance of the person's accomplishments or life activities.  

I hope you enjoy the study of Biographies as much as my students!

Procedural Texts and Digital Tools

When young people are explicitly taught the skills and strategies of proficient reading and are invited to live as richly literate people do, carrying books everywhere, bringing reading into every nook and corner of their lives, the results are dramatic. - Lucy Calkins

Students love to make, build, and design things. The study of procedural texts allows student to explore different types of procedures: recipes, experiments, and rules, as well as heighten the desire to experiment and create! Digital tools can help readers' respond to read procedural texts, wonder and search, make meaning, create original responses, and amplify knowledge into deep understanding and growth as a learner. The following tools are invaluable when facilitating a unit of study on procedural texts. 

SnapGuide is a free iOS application and website that specializes in user generated step-by-step how-to guides. Users create guides on the site, where community members can comment on, rate, and share guides. It scaffolds the students through the process of using the text structure. Students can add the materials list as well as photos, video, and text from the app or site as they are creating their procedure.  The site encourages students to write a persuasive introduction and conclusion. Perfect for procedural text structure!

ThingLink allows students to create interactive images by adding video, music, text, to uploaded images. Have students take pictures and video as they are immersed in the procedure. Once media has been collected, students can create their ThingLink. 

Book Creator allows students to create their own procedural text ePub.  Students can take pictures, video, and record themselves as they are immersed in the procedure. A class or student set of procedural tests could be compiled into one book. A hyperlink to ThingLink or Snapguide could be added to the ePub to be a compilation of all of their work.

View a detailed unit of study on procedural texts by clicking on the image below. Students will examine the big ideas of procedural texts and develop skills and strategies to enhance reading and comprehension. Students will explore cause-and-effect, sequence, language cues and conventions, visualization, determining importance, and synthesis.