Definition of biography text for 5th
Biography
Written account of a person's life
For other uses, see Biography (disambiguation).
A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.
Biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Works in diverse media, from literature to film, form the genre known as biography.
An authorized biography is written with the permission, cooperation, and at times, participation of a subject or a subject's heirs. An unauthorized biography is one written without such permission or participation. An autobiography is written by the person themselves, sometimes with the assistance of a collaborator or ghostwriter.
History
At first, biographical writings were regarded merely as a subsection of history with a focus on a particular individual of historical importance. The independent genre of biography as distinct from general history writing, began to emerge in the 18th century and reached its contemporary form at the turn of the 20th century.
Historical biography
Biography is the earliest literary genre in history. According to Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim, writing took its first steps toward literature in the context of the private tomb funerary inscriptions. These were commemorative&#;biographical&#;texts recounting the careers of deceased high royal officials. The earliest biographical texts are from the 26th century BC.
In the 21st century BC, another famous biography was composed in Mesopotamia about Gilgamesh. One
Non-fiction text types - AQABiography
A biography is writing about someone’s life. If someone is writing about their own life it becomes an autobiography. Biography and autobiography might focus on a specific part of someone’s life and experiences.
A biography is usually written both to inform and to entertain. This means it is a mix of factual information and creative writing. Often biographies are of famous people, eg singers, models or sports personalities. However, sometimes biographies of ordinary people who aren’t well known can be interesting because of an extraordinary experience that they’ve had, such as surviving against the odds or doing something heroic.
This is the opening paragraph of Claire Tomalin’s biography of Charles Dickens, the novelist. The young man she is describing is Dickens, aged
14 January , London. An inquest is being held at Marylebone Workhouse, a muddled complex of buildings spread over a large area between the Marylebone Road and Paddington Street. The Beadle, a parish officer responsible for persuading householders to do their duty as jurors People who decide whether someone is ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty.’ at such inquestA legal investigation, like a court case trial, where evidence is examined., has assembled twelve men. Most of them are middle-aged local tradesmen, but one stands out among them as different. He is young and slight, smartly dressed and good-looking, neither tall nor short at five foot nine inches, with dark hair falling in curls over his forehead and collar. He is a new resident who has just moved into a fine airy house with a large garden, close to Regent’s Park at York Gate: it is No. 1 Devonshire Terrace, from which the Beadle has made haste to summon him to his duty.
Charles Dickens, Claire Tomalin
How does Tomalin, the writer of this extract, introduce us to Charles Dickens?
- The extract begins by raising questions for the reader – why is there an inquest? How will Dickens be inv
What are biography and autobiography?
Usually, children will be given photocopied texts to read and then they may be asked to text-mark the above features to show that they understand how a biography is set out and what is included.
Children may then be asked to choose their own famous person that they are interested in. They will be asked to find as much information about this person and make notes on them. Often teachers give children labelled spider diagrams to help children organise their information, but more able children may be asked to organise the information in their own way. An example of a spider diagram is below:
Children will then be asked to start drafting their biography, using the notes they have collected. Once they have done this, they will go through a process of editing their writing. Usually, a teacher will mark the first draft and write comments and suggestions on it to help them with this. Another method, is for pairs of children to swap their writing and then discuss with their partner how the writing could be improved.
Finally, children will write up their biographies in neat. They may plan how their finished piece is going to look, including title, pictures and captions. Children then produce their finished piece of writing, either on the computer or in their own handwriting.
Interviewing a family member of friend to write a short biography is a great writing activity for KS2 children.
There are also hundreds of wonderful biographies written especailly for kids to read – look through our pick of the best biographies and autobiographies for children.
Biography and autobiography are non-fiction texts. For more details how how non-fiction texts are taught in KS1 and KS2 see our parents' guide, What is non-fiction?
Exploring biographies
Watch: What is a biography?
Back to topA biography is a non-fiction text about someone's life.
Biographies are true pieces of text, based on fact, so biographers (the people who write biographies) have to do a lot of research. They use websites, letters, photographs, diaries and newspapers to help them.
Because biographies are written by someone else, they are written in the third person(//).
They are usually written in chronological order (the order in which events actually happened).
For example, watch this clip. It gives a biography of the scientist Marie Curie.
Watch: Biography of Stephen Hawking
Back to topEven though biographers do lots of research, they can only guess at what it was like to be that person, or the thoughts and feelings the person had.
If the person they want to write about, or anyone who knew them, is still alive, biographers sometimes carry out an interview to ask lots of questions about the person's life.
Here's another biography of a scientist, this time Professor Stephen Hawking.
Who are biographies about?
Back to topOften biographies are about people who are famous because of something they have done. Scientists, artists, sports stars or world leaders often have biographies written about them.
But you don't have to be famous to have a biography written about you. You just need to have a life story that someone else could find interesting or want to find out about.
People in the future will be interested in lives being led right now!
Back to topBiographies should be based on fact. How many facts do you remember about the biographies of Marie Curie and Stephen Hawking? Try this true or false quiz to find out!
Time to become a biographer! Write a short biography of someone you are interested in.
It could be a famous person from history, a sports star, a scientist or an artist. It could even be your favourite TV star!
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