Autobiographies
When a person writes the story of his or her own life,
the result is an autobiography. While a diary or journal is
usually written very close to the time of the events it
describes, an autobiography is usually written some time
after. Many famous people have written autobiographies,
including sportspeople, politicians, religious leaders, actors
and soldiers.
Some autobiographies are simple accounts of the writer’s life—places they
travelled to or people they met. Others are more thoughtful, exploring
personal and political issues or questions of social importance. For
example, the Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini wrote an autobiography in
the 1550s. In it he tells about his life, but also discusses his theories about art and
what it means to humanity.
Toward the end of his life in 1882, Charles Darwin wrote an
autobiography in which he described his childhood and family life, but
also discussed how he came up with his revolutionary theory of evolution
and natural selection.
Nelson Mandela called his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (1995)
because it detailed his struggle with the government of South Africa and his
twenty-seven years of imprisonment before being freed and helping to free his
people.
Did you know…?
Did you know…?
The word autobiography comes from
three ancient Greek
words: auto meaning ‘self ’
bios meaning ‘life’ and graphein
meaning ‘to write’. So autobiography
can roughly translate as ‘self-life
writing’.
The Boke of Margery Kempe is the
oldest known autobiography in
English. It was written in the 1430s
and it provides details of the life of a
middle-class woman in the Middle
Ages.
Writing You Own Autobiography
Over the next few weeks you should try to read the series of extracts from the
autobiographies of famous comedians, sports personalities, TV presenters and
authors. All of these extracts will be available on the VLE and most of the book
from which they are taken are available in the school library.
When you have read each extract you may wish to do further internet research or
you may be asked to think about specific things that the writer has used that you
might be able to apply to your own writing.
At the end of the project, your aim is to have several pieces of writing that will
form chapters for you own autobiography. You should try to work on one piece of
writing per week, redrafting and improving your work.
There will be seven tasks in total one of which will run throughout the course of
the project. This will be the last task on the list and you should aim to spend 10 –
15 minutes per week on this. You autobiography chapters will be based around
the following headings:
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Beginnings
Early childhood
A special person
A special place
A significant memory
Hopes and ambitions for the future
My life in pictures.
In the first week of the project you will given three extracts to read and three
tasks to try to complete. Following this there will be one new extract and one new
task per week as well as the multi-media ‘My life in pictures’ which can be
completed at any stage during the project.
Use the extracts and the prompts to help you tackle these tasks. Of course, your
English teacher will be there to offer help and advice if you need it.
How you present your work will be entirely your decision. You may wish to word
process your chapters or handwrite it neatly and hand it in as a booklet. You could
also add pictures or photographs to your work.
The final project should be handed in to your English teacher on 4th April 2014.
Beginnings
Read the extract from children’s author Jacqueline
Wilson’s autobiography ‘Jacky Daydream.’ In this
extract Wilson describes the moment she was born
and the first few days of her life.
Wilson starts this chapter with ‘I was more than a fortnight late for my own birth.’
Obviously, she wouldn’t have known this herself; she must have taken the time to
find out details about her mother’s experience.
Notice how Wilson writes in the first person (using the word I). Even though she
could not recall the thoughts and feelings that she would have experienced as a
baby, she still writes as if she remember what happened in detail.
Wilson would have had to ask lots of questions about her birth so that she could
write in such detail.
Tasks
 Write a list of questions that you would like to know about the day you
were born. Ask your parents if you can interview them. You may wish to
record this on a tape recorder or find some other way of taking notes.
 Can you find and include a photograph of you as a baby?
 Write the first section of your autobiography. Use the Jacqueline Wilson
extract to help you. Remember to write in the first person and try to
include interesting details.
Don’t forget to redraft and
improve your writing.
Check you work and ask
yourself how it could be
better!
Early Childhood
Read the extracts entitled ‘The Bicycle and the Sweet
Shop’ and ‘The Great Mouse Plot’ from Roald Dahl’s
autobiography Boy: Tales of Childhood. In this extract
Dahl describes some key memories from his early childhood.
Notice how Dahl includes speech in these extracts as a method of keeping the
reader interested in his story. He breaks the narrative voice and introduces the
voices of other characters from his childhood to engage the reader further and
make us more involved in the story. He also exaggerates stories and
characteristics of particular people to create humour for the reader.
Writers have to use specific rules when using speech in writing, particularly when
there is more than one person talking, as it can sometimes get confusing. The use
of paragraphing is particularly important as well as the use of speech marks and
commas.
Tasks
 Research/revise the rules about using speech in writing. Find out how to
use paragraphs, speech marks and commas precisely when writing speech.
 Think of a story from your early childhood
 Write the next section of your autobiography which should be a memory
from your early childhood.
 Try to include speech and exaggeration in this section.
Remember! Things can always
be better.
Don’t forget to check your
work!
Save your draft and include
them in your project.
A Special Person
Read the extract from Maya Angelou’s autobiography
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In this extract
Angelou describes her brother Bailey, both physically
and the connection she felt for him emotionally.
Notice the tone of admiration that comes across in this extract. Angelou uses lots
of similes and metaphors in this extract to describe her brother. Again, she uses
lots of detail in her portrayal of Bailey. In the last few sentences of hits extract,
she explains the emotional connection she had with her brother and emphasizes
how important he was in her life.
Tasks
 Think of a person who has played a really important part in your life so far.
 Think about the reasons why you admire and respect them.
 Are there any stories that you could use that shows your special bond with
this person?
 How would you describe them physically?
 Write your next section of your autobiography, which should be about a
person who is important to you. Try to include metaphors, similes and
interesting adjectives in this section of your project.
Keep redrafting! Make it
better than it already is!
A Special Place
Read the extracts from Laurie Lee’s Cider With Rosie
where he vividly describes two places that he
remembers from his childhood.
These places must have had a huge impact on his younger years since he
remembers them in such detail all these years later.
Look especially at the way he uses lists to build up a montage of sounds, sights,
smells and memories. Notice he uses different types of punctuation to build lists,
including commas and semi-colons ( the ; symbol) and full-stops to add particular
emphasis. Semi-colons are particularly good for building lists within lists, adding
rich layers of detail to the scene he’s describing. Note also how Lee uses poetic
techniques like repetition, alliteration, and onomatopoeia.
A particularly inventive thing about Lee’s writing is how he uses poetric rhythm
and rhyme at times as well. Can you spot a place where the words seem to read
more like a poem?
Tasks
 Try and think of some places that evoke particularly strong memories –
good or bad. (Home, school, relative’s house, holiday place, social place –
somewhere you can describe in detail)
 Are there any stories connected with the place you can tell, or work in to
your description to create atmosphere?
 Use all your senses. Think about not just what the place looked like, but the
other features, smells, sounds, tastes and feelings. Use a thesaurus to help
expand the range of words you use, think about them – which ones sound
best to you?
 As you write this section, have a go at building up detailed descriptive lists
using a range of punctuation, including semi-colons.
 Experiment with poetic techniques like repetition, rhythm and
I’m still here! Make
sure you still keep
onomatopoeia. Take risks! You can always redraft.
improving your work.
A Significant Memory
Read the extract from Alan Carr’s autobiography Look
Who It Is where he desribes the first moment he went
on stage to perform live stand up comedy.
Alan Carr desribes his mixture of emotions at this point in his story and tells us his
personal thoughts about this exciting event in his life.
Notice how Carr uses a short sentence and the end of his extract to create an
impact and emphasise it meaning. In fact, this line is given a whole paragraph to
itself which further emphasises it.
Tasks
 Think of an important moment in your life that you think might have an
impact on something you do in the future.
 Write the next section of your autobiography where you desribe this
memory and the feelings you experienced at the time.
 Try to use a short sentence for impact in this section.
Keep redrafting…
Hopes and Ambitions
Read the extract from Alan Sugar’s autobiography What
You See is What You Get. In this extract Alan Sugar
desribes the moment he decided to start working for
himself and explains how he got to be in the position he
is now.
Task
 Think about your hopes and ambitions for the future. Where do you hope
to be in 15 years time?
 Project yourself into the future and imagine that you have achieved
everything you set out to achieve.
 When you write this section of your autobiography you will have to imagine
that you are writing it as an adult who is nearly 30 years old.
 In this section you need to explain the first step you took to making your
hopes and dreams for the future come true.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
My Story In Pictures
Look at the comic book style illustrations that have been
used to convey information quickly, in an interesting way.
Choose which task you carry out. This will complete your
project.
Either:
Produce a illustrated version of your life story so far (or
you could use photographs if you prefer) ensuring that
you add the correct text to your pictures to explain them.
Or
Turn your autobiography into a multimodal
autobiography. Use multimedia software to create a
slideshow with voice-over narration and music. You
could use photos from home, voice clips from friends and
family and music that you associate with special events in
your life.