9th Lit Honors
Nonfiction Choice Book Assignment
ELGSEL9-10RI10: By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 9-10 text complexity
band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
A biography (bio meaning “life” and graph meaning “to write”) is a description or account of someone's life and times,
which is usually published in the form of a book or an essay.
An autobiography (auto meaning "self") is an account of a person's life written or told by that same person. An
autobiography is more than a list of impersonal facts (education, work, relationships, and death), it also portrays the
subject's experience of those events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), an autobiography presents the subject's
story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life, including intimate details of experiences, and may include an analysis
of the subject's personality.
A memoir (from the French: mémoire from the Latin memoria, meaning "memory", or a “reminiscence”), forms a
subclass of autobiography. Memoirs are structured differently from formal autobiographies which tend to encompass the
writer's entire life span, focusing on the development of his/her personality. The chronological scope of memoir is
determined by the work's context and is therefore more focused and flexible than the traditional arc of birth to childhood
to old age as found in an autobiography.
Choose a nonfiction book that details a person’s life. You may use a book from home or check one out in our
media center. The book must be at least 125 pages in length. To search our media center, log on to a computer
and follow these steps:
1. Click on Destiny.
2. In the search bar, type in a subject you are interested in, for example “baseball” or “fashion.”
3. In the Narrow Your Results task pane to the right, choose Genre>Biography.
4. You can browse through the books, reading about their content and noting the number of pages before going to
the Biography shelf in the media center.
* I recommend the following titles: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah; Three Weeks with My
Brother by Nicholas Sparks; The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.
After choosing a book, use our media center’s resources to find another account of the main character’s life. You
may choose an article from an entertainment magazine, an informative essay, or any other account that is written
by a different author than the author of the book you have chosen. Print this article for your future use.
1. Go to www.harrisonhigh.org
2. Under “Student Support”, choose Media Center
3. Under Online Resources, choose Cobb Digital Library
4. You will be directed to Mackinvia. Type in Harrison High School, Kennesaw, GA. Username= student ID #;
Password= read.
5. Choose Databases.
6. Use the following databases: Academic Search Complete, Advanced Placement Source, or Galileo
Advanced.
Assignment due: September 18th, 2015.
ASSIGNMENT EXPLANATION ON THE BACK!
Please answer all questions in paragraph form. Use MLA style guidelines—including heading, Times New Roman
12 point font, double spacing, and pagination.
1. Provide the bibliographic citation for the book. See the sample. Notice the hanging indentation.
ELGSEL9-10W8: Gather relevant information …and [follow] a standard format for citation.
Author’s Last name, First Name. Title of Book. edition number IF not the first. Publication City: Publishing
Company, Publication Date.
Spiers, Katie. Recipes for Natural Beauty. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998.
2. What is the author’s main claim about the life of the subject? In a full length paragraphs, state the claim, and
analyze at least five specific details that develop this claim and explain what information each detail adds to the
claim. At the end of the explanation, cite each detail with the author and page number in parentheses. See the
formatting sample.
ELGSEL9-10RI2: Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how
it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
Use a lead-in, place double quotation marks around any directly quoted material, place the citation after the last quotation
mark and before the period.
 BLENDED LEAD-IN More than any other Romantic poet, “Byron believed in freedom” (Jones 308).
 SOMEBODY SAYS LEAD-IN Jones explains, “Byron traveled frequently” (84).
 SENTENCE LEAD-IN Byron’s love for women often got him in trouble: “Byron suffered for his liberal
relations” (Jones 210).
3. Analyze the author’s tone. In a full length paragraph, state the author’s tone. Then analyze five specific words
or phrases that develop this tone. (Do not use full sentences or passages for this step.) Explain the effect of the
words in the context of the book. Ponder why the author chose those specific words as opposed to others that
might have been used in that context. How do the words contribute to the tone of the passage in which they
appear? Place quotation marks around the word or phrase. Cite each word or phrase with the author and page
number in parentheses. See the formatting sample.
ELGSEL9-10RI4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative,
and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone.
Example: When describing the joy Byron felt, the author uses the word “pulsated,” a sensory word that describes a
tangible feeling (Jones 176). The word can also refer to a heartbeat, as if Byron actually felt joy moving through his
veins.
4. Provide the bibliographic citation for the accompanying article. See the sample. Notice the hanging
indentation. ELGSEL9-10W8: Gather relevant information …and [follow] a standard format for citation.
To Cite A Periodical Publication in an Online Database:
Author’s Last Name, First Name. “Article Title.” Magazine Title Volume.Issue (year): pages. Database. Medium of
Publication. Date of Access.
Tolson, Nancy. “Making Books Available: The Role of Libraries, Librarians, and Booksellers in the Promotion of African
American Children’s Literature.” African American Review 32.1 (1998): 9-16. EBSCOhost. Web. 1 Oct. 2002.
To Cite a Print Source on a Web Site:
Author’s Last name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Publication. Web Host. Publication Date. Publication
Medium. Date of Access.
Eaves, Morris, Robert Essick, and Joseph Viscomi, eds. “Tyger, Tyger.” The William Blake Archive. Lib of Cong., 28
Sept. 2007. Web. 20 Nov. 2007.
5. Compare the main idea and tone of the second account to the book you read. Compare the details provided
by the author of the book to details provided by another account about the same incident. What similarities and
differences occur between the two mediums? Determine the “truth” about the subject’s life by comparing the two
accounts. Cite each difference with the author and page number in parentheses.
ELGSEL9-10RI7: Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (e.g., a person’s life story in print and
multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account.
Student Name: _______________________________________________________
Title of Choice Book: ___________________________________________________
Author of Choice Book: _________________________________________________
1 no
basis
MLA Format and
Bibliographic Citation
2
weak
3
4
emerging proficient
5
exemplary
x3
ELAGSEL9-10L3: a. Write and edit
work so that it conforms to the
guidelines in a style manual (e.g., MLA
Handbook) appropriate for the
discipline and writing type.
Idea Development—identifies
main claim and tone
x2
ELAGSEL9-10W4: Produce clear and
coherent writing in which the
development, organization, and style
are appropriate to task, purpose, and
audience.
Supporting examples from
text—5 examples each of claim
and tone
x10
ELACGSEL9-10RI2: Determine a
central idea of a text and analyze its
development over the course of the text,
including how it emerges and is shaped
and refined by specific details; provide
an objective summary of the text.
ELAGSEL9-10RI4: Determine the
meaning of words and phrases as they
are used in a text, including figurative,
connotative, and technical meanings;
analyze the cumulative impact of
specific word choices on meaning and
tone.
Comparison to another account—
reveals “truth” about the
subject’s life
x5
ELAGSEL9-10RI7: Analyze various
accounts of a subject told in different
mediums (e.g., a person’s life story in
print and multimedia), determining
which details are emphasized in each
account.
Summative Reading Assessment Total _______ /100