Writing My Autobiography: A Step-by-Step Lesson Plan

• Selection of autobiographies for reference
• Birth Certificate Worksheet printable
  
• My Family Writing Prompt printable
  
• A Friend Writing Prompt printable
  
• The Folks in My Neighborhood Worksheet printable
  
• Imagining Future Scenarios Worksheet printable
  
• My Favorite Daydream Writing Prompt printable
  
• Want Ads for the Future Worksheet printable
  
• Rules for Living Worksheet printable
  
• Things I Like to Do Worksheet printable
  
• Pencils or pens
• Notebook paper
• Optional: Timeline Graphic Organizer printable
• Optional: Supplies for scrapbooks
• Optional: Computers for student use, if you want students to type their final autobiographies

1. Review autobiographies that would be of interest to your students.
2. Make class sets of the following worksheets, which will help students generate ideas and support their writing:

• Birth Certificate Worksheet
• My Family Writing Prompt
• A Friend Writing Prompt
• The Folks in My Neighborhood Worksheet
• Imagining Future Scenarios Worksheet
• My Favorite Daydream Writing Prompt
• Want Ads for the Future Worksheet
• Rules for Living Worksheet
• Things I Like to Do Worksheet

Optional: If you want students to use the Timeline Graphic Organizer to outline their autobiography, make a class set of this printable as well.

Part One: Learning From Our Pasts

Step 1: Explain the meaning and purpose of writing an autobiography. If time allows, read aloud an autobiography or have students choose autobiographies to read on their own. Discuss what devices authors use to make the stories compelling.

Step 2: Tell students they will be writing about their personal family history and important events in their lives that have shaped who they are today. Discuss that a family is composed of people living together and functioning as a unit.

Step 3: Hand out copies of the Birth Certificate Worksheet and the My Family Writing Prompt. Ask students to complete them to the best of their knowledge. They can take the worksheets home to ask family members for help completing any missing information.

Part Two: Who I Am Today

Step 4: Discuss with students that family is important to shaping character, but individuals can also be influenced by people who aren't related to them. Ask students to complete A Friend Writing Prompt and The Folks in My Neighborhood Worksheet.

Step 5: Using their responses to the writing prompts and worksheets completed so far, students will write and describe their neighborhoods and significant relationships with family, friends, teachers, or community members as a way to write about and define how these people have impacted and influenced who they are today.

Part Three: Preparing for the Future

Step 6: Explain that a scenario is an account or synopsis of a projected course of action or events. Ask students to make projections for the future and write about various stages of their lives (e.g. 10, 20, or 50 years from now) by completing the following:

• Imagining Future Scenarios Worksheet
• My Favorite Daydream Writing Prompt
• Want Ads for the Future Worksheet
• Rules for Living Worksheet
• Things I Like to Do Worksheet

Optional: Students will be writing autobiographies using the worksheets and writing prompts completed throughout the lesson. If you have the time, have students compile the worksheets and decorate them with illustrations to create scrapbooks of their lives. The scrapbooks may help students organize their writing in the next step.

Part Four: The Final Product

Step 7: Explain to the class that they will use their completed worksheets and writing prompt responses to complete the final draft of their autobiography. This piece will be peer reviewed and teacher reviewed before publishing. The time line and scrapbook pieces can be used to support their writing. Outline the following writing process for students who need more guidance:

1. Brainstorm a list of possible writing ideas and topics to provide focus for writing stories with more details
2. Use worksheets and ten-minute sessions of directed writing for students having difficulty beginning their writing
3. Write first draft
4. Revise first drafts through peer conferences
5. Edit revised work through teacher conferences
6. Share final drafts

Have students use the worksheets as guides to complete a visual time line about important events their lives. They can choose "firsts" events to use on their time lines, such as a first birthday, first day of school, first haircut, first visit to the dentist, first night away from home, etc. Students can also use the worksheets to make autobiographical scrapbooks.

Students are encouraged to talk to their parents and family members about their writing. They can discuss important events in their childhoods such as, the day they were born, learning to walk and talk, funny things they use to do, etc. After students complete their information gathering, they can work on their autobiographical timelines and scrapbooks.

Ask students to find a partner to read and respectfully critique their writing using the following criteria:

1. Is this story in good order? Are the events in sequence?
2. How are the paragraphs? Are all the ideas about one subject or event grouped together?
3. Does this story have a good beginning, middle, and end? Which parts, if any, need more information?
4. Are there any parts of this story that could be left out? Why?
5. Does this story have well-structured sentences? Which need more work?
6. Are there grammar mistakes?
7. Are there spelling mistakes?
8. Does this writing make you feel any particular way? Why?
9. What parts of this story are you able to visualize?
10. What did you like best about this story?