Grade 7 ELA
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Anderson, Teron
Bateman, Tyran Bradford, Hannah Campbell, Morgan Doble, Ethan Dolen, Carter Duffy, Malcolm Flann, Trayton |
Foley, Jason
Golnick, Brandon Lechkun, Dane Masterson, Andrew McLaughlin, Brennan Ormshaw, William Seniantha, Navariaah |
Magazine
Paragraph Writing
Writing Process! - 6 Traits of Writing
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Biography
Writing a biography isn’t brain surgery but sometimes it’s hard to write about someone’s life. A biography can be as short as a few well orchestrated paragraphs or as long as a 300 page book.
Birth
Start your biography off where the person started off, their birthplace. Talk about the city they were born in, the actual building (be it a hospital, the backseat of a taxi, or a log cabin in the middle of the forest somewhere), who the person’s parents were, and any interesting notes about the birth itself (born with a tail that was soon cut off is a real page turner).
Growing Up
Next, you’ll need to address how the person grew up and where. Did he or she move around alot? Did they get into some trouble with the law at an early age? These are all important things to include in a biography. Kindergarten teachers often wonder where their students are going to end up in twenty or thirty years. The good thing about history is that we already have these answers. By going back and looking at how the child grew up, we can use those behaviour patterns to address who the kids of today will be tomorrow.
Education
Now that you’ve gotten through the childhood and teenage years, you can focus on their education. Many of the greatest minds in human history had little more formal education than a seventh grader. It seems that the true geniuses of our society prefer to work alone and teach themselves about life’s greatest wonders. Sometimes, you can figure out where a person is headed in life based on their school records; sometimes you can’t. Either way, it's good to include all of their education in your biography because that makes up a good amount of their training in life skills. It’s also a good page fluffer when you don’t have anything else to write about.
Relationships
Another key factor that shouldn’t be left out is the relationships that the person entered into. Talk about the person’s closest friends. Talk about any relationship the person has ever had. One friendship can change a person’s entire perspective on life and, therefore, impact that person’s decisions, goals, and achievements.
Ambitions
After you cover the other stuff, move onto their ambitions. Ambitions don’t have to be fulfilled achievements or anything that they even came close to completing in real life but ambitions are very important in the adventure to form an opinion of the person in question. Nikola Tesla, for example, was a brilliant man who tamed electrical forces more than anyone else in history at a time when little was known about the powerful forces of nature. At the time, Thomas Edison was the leader of electrical power generation and owned the biggest company that supplied direct current to the world. Tesla, born in a place known as the Croatian Military Frontier, a place where the men were forced into military service from the age of 16 to 66, dreamed of harnessing the power of Niagra Falls. Hellbent on achieving that goal, Tesla invented hundreds of devices and made astonishing breakthroughs in the field of electricity along the way. Many people focus on the achievements of men but fail to recognize the root ambitions that drive that person to greatness. Ambitions, in my opinion, are just as important, if not more so, as achievements.
Achievements
Next comes the things that the person in question was best known for. What did they do? Why are they famous? Was Ronald Reagan famous for his love for horses or was it because he tore down the Berlin Wall? Was Nikola Tesla famous for fixing Thomas Edison’s electrical equipment or because he discovered alternating current? These things are important. These things are what made that person significant enough for you to write a biography about them. Write about whatever you can find out about them. The more significant, the better. Either way, the curtains must close and the story must end but the person’s life and the actions they took will live on to influence others.
That’s where your biography comes in. When other people read the biography you have written, they’ll remember the person in question and know a little bit more about them (and themselves) at the end of the day. I hope your biography is a success and that by reading this article, you now have the expertise you need to reach the best seller’s list.
EXAMPLE QUESTIONS
Birth
Start your biography off where the person started off, their birthplace. Talk about the city they were born in, the actual building (be it a hospital, the backseat of a taxi, or a log cabin in the middle of the forest somewhere), who the person’s parents were, and any interesting notes about the birth itself (born with a tail that was soon cut off is a real page turner).
Growing Up
Next, you’ll need to address how the person grew up and where. Did he or she move around alot? Did they get into some trouble with the law at an early age? These are all important things to include in a biography. Kindergarten teachers often wonder where their students are going to end up in twenty or thirty years. The good thing about history is that we already have these answers. By going back and looking at how the child grew up, we can use those behaviour patterns to address who the kids of today will be tomorrow.
Education
Now that you’ve gotten through the childhood and teenage years, you can focus on their education. Many of the greatest minds in human history had little more formal education than a seventh grader. It seems that the true geniuses of our society prefer to work alone and teach themselves about life’s greatest wonders. Sometimes, you can figure out where a person is headed in life based on their school records; sometimes you can’t. Either way, it's good to include all of their education in your biography because that makes up a good amount of their training in life skills. It’s also a good page fluffer when you don’t have anything else to write about.
Relationships
Another key factor that shouldn’t be left out is the relationships that the person entered into. Talk about the person’s closest friends. Talk about any relationship the person has ever had. One friendship can change a person’s entire perspective on life and, therefore, impact that person’s decisions, goals, and achievements.
Ambitions
After you cover the other stuff, move onto their ambitions. Ambitions don’t have to be fulfilled achievements or anything that they even came close to completing in real life but ambitions are very important in the adventure to form an opinion of the person in question. Nikola Tesla, for example, was a brilliant man who tamed electrical forces more than anyone else in history at a time when little was known about the powerful forces of nature. At the time, Thomas Edison was the leader of electrical power generation and owned the biggest company that supplied direct current to the world. Tesla, born in a place known as the Croatian Military Frontier, a place where the men were forced into military service from the age of 16 to 66, dreamed of harnessing the power of Niagra Falls. Hellbent on achieving that goal, Tesla invented hundreds of devices and made astonishing breakthroughs in the field of electricity along the way. Many people focus on the achievements of men but fail to recognize the root ambitions that drive that person to greatness. Ambitions, in my opinion, are just as important, if not more so, as achievements.
Achievements
Next comes the things that the person in question was best known for. What did they do? Why are they famous? Was Ronald Reagan famous for his love for horses or was it because he tore down the Berlin Wall? Was Nikola Tesla famous for fixing Thomas Edison’s electrical equipment or because he discovered alternating current? These things are important. These things are what made that person significant enough for you to write a biography about them. Write about whatever you can find out about them. The more significant, the better. Either way, the curtains must close and the story must end but the person’s life and the actions they took will live on to influence others.
That’s where your biography comes in. When other people read the biography you have written, they’ll remember the person in question and know a little bit more about them (and themselves) at the end of the day. I hope your biography is a success and that by reading this article, you now have the expertise you need to reach the best seller’s list.
EXAMPLE QUESTIONS
- Find out the basic facts of the person's life.
- Think about what else you would like to know about the person, and what parts of the life you want to write most about. Some questions you might want to think about include:
- What makes this person special or interesting?
- What kind of effect did he or she have on other people?
- What are the adjectives you would most use to describe the person?
- What examples from their life illustrate those qualities?
- What events shaped or changed this person's life?
- Did he or she overcome obstacles? Take risks? Get lucky?
- How does this person make the school a better place? Ideas provided by - http://www.howtowriteabiography.org/
