Welcome to the Biography Clearinghouse

At the Biography Clearinghouse, we believe in the potential of biographies to be read for pleasure and academic learning and for their capacity to, in the process, spark wonder and questions for readers, evoke empathy and a sense of belonging, and inspire change and innovation. This website aims to support educators in sharing biographies with young people.

Enjoy browsing our featured biographies, related resources and teaching invitations, and consider how you might use them with your students. 

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Why Biography?

Biography is a dynamic genre and an important component in every elementary and middle-level curriculum. As diversifying the curriculum is a national imperative, contemporary biographies explore the lives of diverse peoples throughout history and around the globe. Biographies reveal the diversity of people who have helped to shape government, the arts, science, sports, industry, and entertainment. Biographies also infuse the language arts, science, social studies, math, and integrated arts curriculum with models of agency and perseverance.

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. ​​

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Our Framework

For further information, read our Principles document.

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Logo design by Larry Daley

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