Biography mentor texts for kindergarten

I recently received an email from a junior high teacher who was looking for some support as she began her enhet of study on biographies.  She wrote that she was &#;looking to push this biographical del av helhet to be heartfelt.&#;  She wanted her students to think about &#;why we remember these people&#; and to &#;engage in research that goes beyond the computer.&#;

I immediately thought of an article I had recently read in the Winter edition of the Illinois Reading Council Journal, titled &#;Biographies in Focus: A ramverk for Supporting Biographical Writing in the Classroom (written by Donna E. Werderich, Alice B. McGinty, and Barb Rosenstock).  The authors of the article outlined several ways that students might focus their biographical writing:

• focus on an object or item that was important to the person and illustrates their life in some essential way
• focus on a special event that had wide reaching implications for that person&#;s life
• focus on their relationsh

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  Living literature isn&#;t just for reading but also for teaching writing styles! Serious writing lessons don&#;t början in our homeschool until mittpunkt and high school, but believe it or not, I often use picture books to help me teach.

  Since picture books can be read in one sitting, they are perfect examples of good writing from master writers. Of course, you must ensure you&#;re reading books written by mästare writers (not twaddle.) And that&#;s what I&#;ve set out to share with you in this series &#; books perfect for teaching various writing styles!

  This article focuses on writing biographies. Wait, did inom hear a &#;Yuck!&#;? If your children are reading this, I&#;m pretty sure I heard several of them! Historically, biographies are not very fun to read—and definitely not fun to write.

  The word &#;boring&#; comes to mind when I think about reading most biographies. The words &#;research&#; and &#;bibliography&#; come to mind when I think about writing biographies. None of

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  We are starting the year, and the creation of our writing portfolio, with a unit focused on memoir and personal essay. I am hoping that in this unit, the students will start to share parts of their writing identity through discussion of what makes them a writer or not, the erules of writing and which we need to break, as well as experimentation with writing based in their own lives.

  I have been gathering memoirs and personal essays for a while now, trying to focus on stories that may enrich their understanding of how others see the world so that they in turn can focus on their own lives.

  As always, our trusted picture books are part of the mentor text collection that will surround students as we embark into this work, so here are the ones I have pulled so far that focus on small moments and written in 1st person. While some of these are true memoirs, others are texts I can use as models despite them not being true stories.

  The Soccer Fence by Phil Bildner and illustrated by

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