This lesson focuses on Benjamin Franklin's life by providing background information about Franklin including his apprentice to his brother, his "Silence Dogood" column, his autobiograpy, "Poor Richard's Almanack," and his political...

This lesson focuses on Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave who lectured for the Anti-Slavery Society and wrote of his experiences in his three autobiographies. It includes a PDF of "The Battle with Mr. Covey" from The Narrative of the...

This is an online study guide for the novel Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington including author information, literary elements, chapter-by-chapter summaries/notes, study questions, and analysis.

This series of lessons engages students in autobiographical writing. Students will participate in pre-writing, drafting, and publishing stories about their lives.

This lesson engages students in using a template to help them with personal writing. Students will gain exposure to several autobiographies and then will write their own autobiographical pieces.

The highly-respected Reading Rockets program offers both teachers and students a toolkit of ways to connect more actively with the materials they read. Some of these techniques are specifically for fiction-reading, others are designed...

UNC's resource provides links to download the entire text of "Narrative of James Williams, an American Slave," which was published in 1838. Included are 1838 articles from "The Liberator," in which the authenticity of this narrative is...

Write It Memoir offers a complete writing workshop to develop your personal story. Search your memory through the brainstorming activities to launch your piece. Draft a map of the memories along with reading other models. As the process...

The appendix to Frederick Douglass's well-known autobiography in which he castigates Americans' embrace of Christianity as hypocritical.

Several narratives of the capture of West Africans, including the famous autobiography of Venture Smith, from the eighteenth century, two accounts of conditions on slave ships, and an audio recording of the memories of the descendants of...

A summary and questions related to an autobiography in which Booker T. Washington describes his early experience of freedom. A link to this full text is provided here as well.

An excerpt from Jane Addams' autobiography "Twenty Years at Hull House" that describes how Abraham Lincoln inspired her urban reform efforts.

An excerpt from Andrew Carnegie's autobiography that describes his attitude toward wealth and an excerpt from the novel The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner that suggests the giddy, unreality of an America caught up in...

Two views of late-nineteenth-century American progress: Henry Adams criticizes it in his autobiography, and the Columbian Exposition of 1893 praises it.

Excerpt from Ida Tarbell's magazine expose of Standard Oil's manipulation of the American oil industry contrasted with excerpts from John D. Rockefeller's autobiography in which he defends the practices of his company.

Find information about the Homestead strike and the treatment of the workers inspired some labor activists to plot the murder of Henry Clay Frick. Part of the autobiography of Emma Goldman.

Contains four audio clips from interviews with writer Maya Angelou. They discuss all art being autobiography and confession, the predicament of black Americans at the end of the 20th Century, the relationship of black Americans with...

At this site from the Modern History Sourcebook of Fordham University, you can read an excerpt from Abelard's translated autobiography entitled "The Story of My Misfortunes." Includes an informative introduction about Abelard and his life.

Excerpt from Spanish-American War era autobiography of Lt. Eli Helmick of the 10th U.S. Infantry provides his account of life aboard the transport "Alamo" and landings in Cuba.

This site contains a book review of Knots in My Yo-yo String: the Autobiography of a Kid, which is a memoir by Jerry Spinelli. A suggested activity is included that asks students to bring in important mementos that the students will...

A scanned copy of the 1897 publication of The Story of Marco Polo by Marco Polo, an autobiography for children.

A scanned copy of the 1853 publication of The Life of Dr. Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin, an autobiography for children.

Complete with audio and video links, this NPR web page tells the story of the puppeteer who is the voice and movement of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, Caroll Spinney. Includes excerpts from Spinney's autobiography. This site has lots of...

A chapter of an autobiography of Rolf Wideroe, an important figure in the development of accelerators. This chapter discusses the first linear accelerator.