Biography and autobiography

2. Analysing biographies and autobiographies

Required Resources

• Student Worksheet 2

Delivery

• This activity looks specifically at person and viewpoint in text and how this is communicated grammatically. It should be re-iterated that autobiography is almost always written in the first person, meaning that the central character is referred to as I. Biography is written in the third person, he or she. The term person is usually defined as follows: first person: the speaker or writer; second person: the person addressed (i.e. the listener or reader); third person: anyone else. The devices used for distinguishing persons are personal pronouns (I, he, she etc and inflected forms such as me, my, mine etc) and possessive determiners. These are highlighted on Student Worksheet 2.
• Before students commence with this activity they should be encouraged to consider the advantages and disadvantages of first person narrative. One advantage is that readers are able to empathise with the character through a sharing of their thoughts and feelings and not just what they say. By the same token a disadvantage is that this limits the author to specific places and times when this character is present and restricts the reader's understanding of an event to what this character can know about it. It might be useful to outline for students some key terms to use when evaluating these differences such as Empathy, Immediacy and Credibility.
• Working on their own, students should read both extracts on Student Worksheet 2 and using the Person and Viewpoint chart, highlight (in pencil), grammatical devices used to convey first or third person viewpoint, for example highlight the description of explicit feelings.
• Extracts on Student Worksheet 2 are from the following: extract (a) Biography: Because It's There: The Life of George Mallory by Dudley Green, Tempus Publishing, extract (b) Autobiography: Facing Up: A Remarkable Journey to the Summit of Everest by Bear Grylls, Pan Books.
• Once students have completed this activity discuss their findings as a class, collating feedback on the board.

Differentiation

Lower Ability:

Some students will require more time for reading.

Higher Ability:

Students that complete this activity with time to spare can be encouraged to select one of the extracts and re-write it in either first or third person narrative. Higher ability students could also be asked to look at what difference this makes to the influence on the reader.