Why Biography?

Biographies can be read for both personal pleasure and academic learning. Biographies can shape readers’ understanding of the world and their connection with the past and present. Biographies can evoke students’ wonder and prompt them to ask questions about the world. Through the telling of life stories biographies can help students build empathy.   ​

Not only that...

• Biography is a powerful genre for fostering students’ reading and writing identities.
• Biography serves as a model for narrative thinking.
• Biographies can be used to support students’ growth in reading comprehension. 
• Biographies allow us to consider the role of the biographer and the evidence the biographer uses. In biography, authors build cases using evidence. 
• Biographies serve as models for how authors and illustrators do research, through the information revealed in author and illustrator notes in both picturebook and chapter-length biographies. The Biography Clearinghouse advocates that publishers regularly include such back matter.
• Biography models language, stylistic choices, and literary elements in the same ways that other literary genres do.
• Biography models the importance of revision.
• Biographies are powerful tools for exploring visual literacy.
• Biographies can be a tool for critical literacy. Biographers make decisions about what to include, what to emphasize, and what to exclude, offering complex perspectives of people and examinations of power and privilege. ​​

For further information, read our Principles document.

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Featured Biography

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