Biographies of Us

As part of our final informational text units in reading and writing, students are reading and writing biographies. To begin, we read biographies and hunted for the type of information shared by the author. We then learned how to read timelines and students created timelines on a person they read about. Students even worked in teams to read about a historical figure and summarize important findings about that person to the class. Each person in the team had a task card with a specific question that they were responsible for sharing about.

Reading biographies helped us prepare to write them. We began by going through the steps of writing a biography together. The first step was to find an important person to write about and gather information. We decided to interview Mrs. Gamez, a teacher at our school who helps in our classroom at different parts of the day. Students generated interview questions and then we conducted an interview with Mrs. Gamez. After gathering her responses, students worked in teams to categorize her answers and decide on four sections for our class biography. We have now started to write a biography on Mrs. Gamez with information about her childhood, adulthood, education, and teaching career.

Independently, students are going through the same process of writing a biography on one of their classmates. As a class we decided that third graders would be interviewed about their early life, education, hobbies, and wishes and goals. Once assigned a partner, students generated interview questions and then partners got together to interview each other and gather information.

Students are currently in the process of typing the biographies and the finished biographies will be placed in a bound book for students to take home. Each student will have a book full of biographies written about their third grade classmates. What a great way for students to remember each other and their time in third grade!