R/W post #11

        As I read through Tompkins (2012) in preparation for this week there were some activities that really stuck out to me, one being biography posters. This project has students research an individual and create a poster informing their classmates about this individuals life. I thought this was a fun approach to a research project and also a fun way to introduce what biography writing is and why it is important. For this weeks blog entry I decided to make my own blog poster on feminist icon Gloria Steinem (aka my idol).  As you can see by my lovely drawing, Gloria was a journalist and political activist that channeled her energy into the feminist movement. At the bottom of the poster I added in a favorite quote of mine that captures her as a feminist activist. I had a lot of fun making this and would love to incorporate it into my future classroom! Another activity I enjoyed in Tompkins (2012) was the bio poems. This really stood out to me as I have been research a lot on poems as it is my own genre expert workshop. I always love combining two different genres and I think bio poems give students the perfect opportunity to work through poetic devices through a formulated poem while still practicing biography writing. 

(excuse my artistic abilities)

    This past week we also got to engage in a genre workshop focused on biographies. This workshop run by Marissa, Maddie, and Holly helped me better understand how to introduce this kind of writing to my students. Something I really enjoyed was the "me quilt" that we had to complete. This activity was super helpful as it had students create pictures to describe the series of events. I love how versatile this activity is as well, it can be used on books like we did but can be used for them to describe their own or others experiences. I would love to use this in the classroom as a graphic organizer for a project where students interview a classmate. Through this they can pick out main events in their peers life that make them who they are and write a short biography on their classmate. 

    The final thing I want to touch on in this blog is a key point that came near the end of the genre workshop, and that is that biographies rarely are about "normal" people. In most biographies the individual is faced with challenges and overcomes them and eventually succeeds. I believe it is important to incorporate mentor texts that are stories of "normal" people as well. This provides a better opportunity for students to see themselves represented in a text.