What is a biography?

• A biography is a non-fiction genre that is a written account of a person's life written by another. 

• Over the course of this online unit, students will explore the features of biographies and explore why biographies are written. Throughout the unit, students will be identifying various elements of biographies as they read. Students will also be exposed to different non-fiction text features as they read their biographies and practice using them to help them better understand non-fiction texts.. Throughout this engaging unit, students will be able to apply the knowledge that they learn through each of the mini-lessons to their own Who Was? or Who Is? book. 

 

Objectives

• Lesson 1: Getting Ready for Our Biography Unit

  • Students will be able to plan ahead and organize days/pages for reading their Who Was or Who Is book.

  • Students will be able to understand the concept of time management and strengthen their time management.

  • Students will understand the expectations, guidelines, assignments, and structure of the biography unit.

• Lesson 2: What is non-fiction?

  • Students will be able to identify features of non-fiction texts

  • Students will be able to understand the similarities and differences between fiction and non-fiction texts

  • Students will be able to analyze and identify non-fiction text features

  • Students will be able to explore non-fiction text features using various resources

• Lesson 3: Biographies

  • Students will be able to identify elements of biographies

  • Students will be able to define a biography

  • Students will be able to compare and contrast biographies and autobiographies

• Lesson 4: Importance of Biographies

  • Students will be able to identify what makes a person famous

  • Students will be able to determine why a subject is famous or important

  • Students will be able to discuss why biographies are written about certain people

• Lesson 5: Analyzing your Biography Subject

  • Students will be able to analyze various relationships the subject has with other people in the text

  • Students will be able to identify struggles, challenges, and problems that the subject faces

  • Students will be able to develop theories about a subject by analyzing his/her decisions

• Lesson 6: Describing your Biography Subject

  • Students will be able to analyze a character’s feelings, actions, thoughts, and sayings

  • Students will be able to identify character traits that a character possesses

  • Students will be able to understand the impact that the subject has had or the lesson the subject has taught the world

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Scaffolding Knowledge

• Unit/Project Question:

  • What is a biography?

• Essential Question:

  • Does fame change over time?

  • What makes a person famous?

  • What is fame?​

• Content Questions:

  • What are non-fiction text features?

  • What are the similarities and differences between biographies and autobiographies?

  • What is an autobiography?

  • What do a character’s decisions, relationships, actions, and challenges tell us about them as a person?

  • What kind of relationships does the biography subject have?

  • What decisions does the biography subject make?

  • What problems, struggles, and challenges does the biography subject face?

  • How do character traits define a person?

  • What impacts do biography subjects make?

  • Why are biographies written about certain people?

 

Assessments

• ​Utilizing GoogleDrive​

• Google Docs—assessing understanding of each unit lesson

• Quizlet

• Kahoot!

• YouTube Videos

• Padlet

• Flipbook Project

• Writing Long off of 3 Stop and Jots (quiz)

• Character Analysis (quiz) 

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Bloom's Taxonomy

• Create:  Students will take notes on the information that they read about their biography subject throughout the unit to construct and design a flipbook project (Armstrong, 2017).

• Evaluate: Students will critique why their biography subjects make decisions and critically examine their actions based on those decisions (Armstrong, 2017).

• Analyze:  Students will analyze the relationships that their biography subject has, and examine the impacts those relationships have (Armstrong, 2017).

• Apply: Students will be able to apply skills learned in each of the mini-lessons to their comprehensive flipbook project on their biography subject (Armstrong, 2017).

• Understand: Students will be able to infer character traits that their biography subject possesses and interpret how their feelings, sayings, actions, and thoughts show those traits (Armstrong, 2017).

• Remember: Students will be able to find and remember information that they read in their Who Was/Who Is books to include in the milestone events of their flipbook project (Armstrong, 2017).

 

Multiple Intelligences

• In this online unit on biographies, I used some of Gardner’s multiple intelligences model (Gardner, 1993) to address different learning preferences that my fifth grade students have:

  • Logical/Mathematical—ability to calculate, quantify, perceive relationships and connections (Gardner, 1993).

    • My logical and mathematical fifth graders will be able to identify and organize important milestone events in their biography subject’s life (Gardner, 1993).

  • Visual/Spatial—ability to think in pictures, rather than in words (Gardner, 1993).

    • My visual and spatial learners will be able to take the information retrieved from their readings and pictures researched on the internet and visually organize everything together in their flipbook project (Gardner, 1993).

  • Intrapersonal—ability to understand and appreciate yourself (Gardner, 1993).

    • My intrapersonal learners will be successful throughout this online unit because not only can they work at their own pace, but each portion of the unit has the ability to be differentiated for the individual learner which allows them the opportunity to understand on their own level (Gardner, 1993).

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Depth of Knowledge

• In this unit, I use a character analysis activity that students complete about the subject of their biography. This assessment involves students analyzing the subject of their Who Was/Who Is book that they are reading. The students will associate three character traits that the subject of their biography possesses. Then the students will have to choose which of the following they used to pick those character traits: a character’s feelings, thoughts, decisions, actions, and dialogue to help them pick appropriate traits. After that, students will need to find text evidence to support their choice for each specific trait. Finally, each learner will need to explain their reasoning behind choosing each trait, to show their analytical ability of character traits and application of the skills taught.

  • Level 1: Routine Thinking: Identifying and recognizing three character traits that their character possesses (Webb, 2002).

  • Level 2: Conceptual Thinking: Categorizing and interpreting how they knew the pick those traits based on how a character thinks, feels, acts, decides, speaks, etc. (Webb, 2002).

  • Level 3: Strategic Reasoning: Finding specific text evidence and examples from the novel to draw a conclusion based on what traits they chose and support their thinking (Webb, 2002).

  • Level 4: Extending Thinking: Explaining the trait, text evidence, and their thinking to overall show how they analyzed the character of their choice. This will show their ability to synthesize text and recognize various character traits that different characters possess, as well as show their ability to prove their thinking and connect the various lessons/skills (Webb, 2002).

 

Sense and Meaning

• Most children are fascinated by famous people and interested in important figures in our society. Something that I strived to do throughout this unit was to make sure that the new information that is being presented about biographies has both sense and meaning for the students. With that being said, I tried to make sure that the students would be engaged in a variety of activities that would stimulate and engage the different parts of the brain; therefore creating more neuron connections and strengthening the existing ones!

• Overall, I feel that this online unit will be beneficial to my students because it will allow them to individually analyze a biography subject of their choice through different lessons and activities. Throughout this unit, students will overall be able to understand the impact that a person can make on society and history through the biography books that they read. From this unit, students should be able to take away an understanding of what makes a person important and famous. In order for my fifth grade students to internalize this concept that is being taught about biography subjects, they need to put all of the learned information about biography subjects from the various mini-lessons in this unit from working memory to long term memory, the information needs to have sense and meaning (Sousa, 2011). Overall, I believe that this project will allow students to connect to their biography subjects and understand how impacts can be made on society and leave a lasting impression on the present and future.

• By using an engaging online unit, full of numerous interactive activities, the new information being presented is motivating and therefore connecting to students’ experiences! I will make sure to connect my examples of different biography subjects to the student’s lives! The students will be reminded that famous people that they know can have biographies written about them--athletes, politics, artists, musicians, civil rights activists, and more. People that they hear about every day could be biography subjects, therefore this will make them connect and they will think about how fame and biographies affects them.Therefore creating sense and meaning to the lessons and unit, helping students put biography skills in long-term memory rather than just working memory.

 

 

Standards Addressed

• Reading Standards:

  • NJSLSA.R1.: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences and relevant connections from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

  • NJSLSA.R2.: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

  • NJSLSA.R3.: Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

  • NJSLSA.R6.: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

  • NJSLSA.R10.: Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently with scaffolding as needed.

  • RL.5.1.: Quote accurately from a text, and make relevant connections when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

  • RL.5.3.: Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact).

  • RL.5.6.: Describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described.

  • RI.5.3.: Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.

  • RI.5.5.: Compare and contrast the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in two or more texts.

• Technology Standards:

  • 8.1 Educational Technology: All students will use digital tools to access, manage, evaluate, and synthesize information in order to solve problems individually and collaborate and to create and communicate knowledge.

 

Teacher Preparation:

• Materials used throughout unit can be found and accessed through the resources page

• Materials were all created using YouTube and GoogleDrive--GoogleDocs, GoogleSlides, GoogleSheets, etc.

 

Key Terms:

• Biography: the narrative of a person including all the relevant information and details about his/her life written by someone else

  • The word biography comes from the two root words, bio and graphy.

    • Bio means life

    • Graphy means writing.

    • Therefore, biography means writing about life.

• Biography subject: what the main character of a biography is referred to as

• Fiction: a literary work based on the imagination and not necessarily on fact

• Non-Fiction: text or writing that is not fictional but contains factual, true information

• Autobiography: the life story of an individual, as written by him or herself

• Non-fiction text feature: features that help a reader to navigate a non-fiction text more easily.

  • ​Examples: Table of Contents, Headings, Bold Words, Captions, Photographs, Graphs, Charts, Illustrations, Glossary, and Index.

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Works Cited:​

• Armstrong, P (2017). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Retrieved from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-         taxonomy/.

• Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The Theory in Practice. New York, NY: Basic Books.

• McCombs, B. (2000). Assessing the Role of Educational Technology in the Teaching and Learning Process: A             Learner-Centered Perspective. The Secretary’s Conference on Educational Technology 2000.                                 www.ed.gov/Technology/techconf/2000/mccombs_paper.html.

• Roblyer, M. (2003). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching. (3rd ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill         Prentice Hall.

• Sousa, David A. (2011). How the Brain Learns (4th ed.). Corwin Press.

• Webb, N. (2002) “Depth-of-Knowledge Levels for four content areas,” unpublished paper.