Biography

Biography
Due: Monday, January 11, 5:00 pm

Biography is one of the more popular literary genres. Its
popularity is also visible in documentary film projects as well as
fictional films and television productions. Educators in the
social sciences utilize biography when teaching about ethnic
studies, history, sociology, political science, psychology,
economics as well as many other academic fields such as
business marketing, communication studies and of course
theatre and film.

A well-executed biography explains why historical figures are
important, whether as “really bad” or “really good” examples of
human beings. In theory, we are supposed to learn from the
trials and tribulations, the successes and failings and the so-
called “rights” and “wrongs” that are the framework of analysis
in good biographical compositions. As such, communicating in
an insightful, clear and concise fashion why this person’s story
is compelling, is the foundation component of this assignment.
And, a well-written biography can be an inspirational and or
entertaining read.

The primary goal of this assignment is to serve as an exercise to
enhance your writing skills. Woven into the concept of its
design, this exercise affords students the opportunity to
explore a significant individual of their choosing.

The Assignment: Compose a 750-word, 3-page biographical
essay that discusses “why” this historical figure should be
included in the education of a high school student.
• You can choose any historical figure.

o Can be either a Real Historical Figure OR a Fictional
Character

• You may only choose 1.

The paper needs to meet all of the following requirements:
• Paper’s Thesis: This is the only assignment wherein the

students are given the thesis statement to build on:
“Name of individual should be a part of the education of
high school students for these reasons: reason 1, reason 2
and reason 3”. This thesis statement must be,
somewhere, in the introductory paragraph and clearly
restated in the conclusion.

• Person, who is the subject of the biography, must be
deceased; no living figures.

• Famous to relatively famous
o There is a 3-source minimum, and there is only 1

week for the assignment, because of this, I
recommend keeping easy accessibility to a lot of
online sources.

• Three sources minimum – four sources maximum – no
extra points for extra sources
o These can be websites, articles, books, documentary

television programs or documentary movies
§ The sources can be any assemblage

• Ie., 3 websites; 3 documentary movies; 1
website and 2 documentary television
programs, etc.

• Papers are graded on the quality of writing
and accuracy of formatting

Overall structure of the Biography Essay: This is a standard, 5
paragraph essay.
• For the introductory paragraph, the thesis statement

should be clearly stated. In this paragraph, it should be
stated when they lived and have a few sentences on
“who” this individual was.

• Each one of the 3 body paragraphs will discuss one of the
3 reasons given in the thesis statement. Try to balance the
size (word count) of each of these paragraphs, as they
should all be quite close in size.

• For the conclusion paragraph, the thesis must be restated.
Typically, this is the shortest paragraph.

• No separate title page required
• Title is the name of the biographical figure
• BE SURE TO INCLUDE THE WORD COUNT AT THE END OF

THE NARRATIVE
• Students are required to stay with the 5 paragraph

structure

The Good Essay Writing text components that are of particular
value to this assignment are:
Chapter 7: Writing Introductions
Chapter 8: Writing the Main Section
Chapter 9: Writing Conclusions
Chapter 10: Referencing
Chapter 12: Some Common Worries