Writing the Biography
Once your child has gathered all the information they need, they need to come up with an “angle.” This is what makes one biography substantially different from other biographies. Coming up with an angle just means figuring out the main idea of the biography or the point the biography will make about the person. It is really like a thesis statement. For example, a child might want everyone to know that his grandfather was an honest, hard-working person who, in spite of many hardships made a good life for himself and his family. That main idea can help your child stay focused on the details to include in the biography. After all, a lifetime is full of many, many events; they can’t all be included. Which ones should be included? The ones that help illustrate the main idea! If the main idea is to show a person was hard-working, readers don’t need to know all the details about the person’s various pets — unless that person worked hard to take care of those pets! Once your child knows the message they’d like to convey with their biography, they can write a short and simple outline that lists the events and details they want to write about. It doesn’t have to be long or complicated or very formal. Even a list of events they’d like to write about will work quite nicely.
Making the Biography Interesting
What makes a biography interesting? We’d like to think that the story itself is enough to make the biography interesting, and that’s sometimes true when we’re writing a biography about a family member to be read by other family members. But how can your child make his biography interesting to others? One way is to use specific words when possible rather than general words. For example, “car” is a general word, but “Mercedes” is specific. “Walk” is also a rather general word, but “shuffle” is more specific. Of course, it’s not always necessary to use specific terms. Sometimes adjectives and adverbs can use used. For example, your child might write, “the old and rusted cars” or “walked slowly.” The idea behind all this detail is to help a reader see and feel what the writer sees and feels. The Read, Write, Think Web site has a great exercise sheet to help kids be more descriptive in their writing. But be sure to let them know that less can sometimes be more! In other words, tell them not to overdo it!
Adding Final Touches
Once your child is done with his biography, there are some final touches they can add. Pictures are great additions to a biography. Family pictures can be collected from other people in the family, but how do you get pictures of famous people? The best way is to look for photos that are in the public domain. That just means that no one owns the copyright to the photos anymore, so anyone can use them. Another final touch is to find a great quotation to start with, one that will get a reader “hooked.” This can be something the subject of the biography (i.e. a grandparent) frequently said, or it could be a quotation from a famous author that reflects what your child wants to say about his subject.
Publishing the Biography
Publishing can mean something as simple as printing out copies of the biography on a printer or getting it published as a book. It’s actually easier to get it published than you might think. Bookemon.com is a wonderful place to go to get a book published. There are lots of “templates” to pick from and lots of biographies that you can take a look at. Books created there can be shared with everyone and anyone!
