Biographies-6th+Grade-Victor+Johnson

I am using the books and videos listed below to help prepare students for writing biographies of their own. This project is going to focus heavily on reading many sources of information about a person and organizing that information in to a biographical narrative. Successful completion of this project not only relies heavily on creating a functional narrative, but also reading comprehension in the initial stages of the research and writing process. The books listed below are biographies that I have pulled from our school library in order to familiarize students with the format, sequencing and textual voice of biographies. I chose non-fiction texts that vary in lexile range from late elementary school to late high school, in hopes that students can find a text that they are comfortable working with. The majority of the texts included graphics to supplement the text, and all of approached the life of a notable person holistically.

Engel, T., & Jackson, M. (2008). //Neil Armstrong: one giant leap for mankind//. New York: Sterling. Lexile: 980 Gelfand, D. E. (2007). //Sean Combs//. New York: Chelsea House. Lexile: 1120 McPherson, S. S. (2004). //Albert Einstein//. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications. Lexile: 700 Micklos, J. (2006). //Alexander Graham Bell: inventor of the telephone//. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Lexile: 980 Myers, W. D. (2001). //The greatest: Muhammad Ali//. New York: Scholastic Press. Lexile: 990 Orr, T. (1995). //Louis Armstrong//. New York: Sterling. Lexile: 970 Poolos, J. (2002). //Jackie Chan//. New York: Rosen Pub. Group. Lexile: 820 Robinson, J. D. (2006). //Lord Baltimore: founder of Maryland//. Minneapolis, Minn.: Compass Point Books. Lexile: 1090 Thornley, S. (2003). //Super sports star Daunte Culpepper//. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers. Lexile: 730 Whiting, J. (2009). //David Beckham//. Philadelphia: Mason Crest Publishers. Lexile: 1030 Kidder, T. (2004). //Mountains Beyond Mountains//: Random House Publishing Group. Lexile: 1080 (a great biography about Dr. Paul Farmer written in a very compelling and inspirational way) (added by Martie Campbell)

This is a great reading list with short synopsis to spark student interest: []

This site provides biographical information in a lot of different formats on a number of notable people. With games, videos, and articles, this web site is very interactive: []

This site provides a multimedia relation of the life of Nelson Mandela : []

This site does a great job of presenting all of the facets of the lives of famous explorers from a variety of angles: []

This BBC web site has links to biographical articles that are segmented in to a number of categories. These categories exemplify the type of organization that I would suggest students implement when gathering biographical information.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/

Hello!

I'm not sure if you need biographies in Spanish for any ELL students in your class, but they do exist. I found copies in Spanish for grades 2-5 and up for Louis Armstrong, Neil Armstrong, Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell and Muhammad Ali (from looking at your list of books). I'm sure you could find them by contacting the local public libraries so you could get them through inter-library loan. I just wanted to point that out in case you needed any biographies in Spanish.

Marie Crawford

Victor, After taking the Young Adult course, I've learned that picture books are great resources for students. Even though they may be picture books, some have a great deal of text. One of my favorites is about Peter the Great. The author is Diane Stanley. It could also be used for a history course. There are lots of other picture books that have illustrations rather than pictures that could be used for this. I always thought picture books were for the very young, but now I seek them out. Michelle Meeks