Autobiography: Blurbs

In this lesson students are asked to explore how authors promote their autobiographies by writing engaging blurbs. It would ideal to use as part of a KS3 unit on autobiography.

The lesson starts by asking students to think about the difference between autobiographies and biographies as well as the meaning of root words - auto, bio, graphy. There is a slide to reveal the answers.

There is a group task for students to do after reading a selection of blurbs where they are given 4 questions on the board. Thes extracts are from the autobiographies of Colleen Rooney, Michelle Obama and A Street Cat Named Bob. All questions are linked to the GCSE reading skills AO1, 2, 3 where they have to think about language, structure and the readers’ reactions.

There are slides with the text on for teachers to annotate on a smart board.

The plenary asks students to write a mini blurb introduce themselves and their lives using the key descriptive skills to engage a reader. There is a slide suggesting a peer assessment, referring to a success criteria.

This lesson, as my other Literature lessons do, includes:

Starter tasks which introduce the main idea of the lesson
Handouts of extracts/text
Differentiated tasks
Opportunities for pair and group talk within activities (‘Talk for Writing’)