Have young writers compose stories that add detail to the moments captured in personal photographs and create an annotated photo album. Rather than sending every member of the class home for the weekend with a digital camera, you might...

Students identify personal traits. In this autobiographical art lesson, students read the book Whoever You Are and use art supplies to create a body cut-out of themselves. Students include physical characteristics on their cut out.

Bring digital storytelling to your language arts class! To begin, learners select their own topic, such as a poem that reflects a life experience they had or a historical figure who interests them. Then they work to create a storyboard...

Young scholars use a word processor and some of its tools to create an exciting and visual autobiography. They download a sample letter and then create one of their own.

Eighth graders explore themselves and their community. In this writing lesson plan, 8th graders brainstorm ideas about their childhood, middle years, family, and future goals.  Students write an autobiographical sketch about...

Students complete autobiographical writing assignments throughout the school year that they save and rewrite to put into a published book during the last month of class. They include photographs, drawings and mementos of their lives in...

Students explore the concepts of intolerance and racism in the autobiography Kaffir Boy written by Mark Mathabane. The lesson reveals the story's depiction of the terrible toll of apartheid on the lives of individuals.

Students examine the contributions of African Americans in New Haven, Connecticut in the 19th and 20th centuries. After being introduced to new vocabulary, they review the elements of autobiographies and read excerpts of African...

Young scholars examine history of slavery in United States, discuss abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass who worked to end slavery, listen to excerpts from Douglass' autobiography, and visit interactive Underground Railroad web site.

Learners analyze slavery and its effects on humanity using Frederick Douglass' autobiography. For this slavery instructional activity, students analyze instances of reality and romanticized myth using a slave narrative. Learners explore...

Sixth graders examine implicit and explicit opinions in a text about Rosa Parks. In this explicit and implicit opinions lesson, 6th graders participate in direct teaching, guided practice, and independent practice while reading an...

Second graders create balancing mobiles using 5 labeled items that represent them and different time periods of their lives.

Students create a graphic timeline depicting who they are, where they've been and where they think they are going in their lives. They analyze and reflect upon the important events of their lives, and then use this as a starting point...

Students create a writing selection with a well-developed plot. They use a personal photograph in which they are visible to base their autobiographical writing. They write a description of the events surrounding the photograph in the...

Young scholars create a PowerPoint presentation. In this technology lesson, students create an autobiographical six slide presentation. This lesson includes worksheets explaining how the slide layout should be and a storyboard to help...

Much has been made of the differences between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. But was there any common ground between them? Class members reconsider what they think they know about these two civil rights leaders with...

Foster community in your classroom and encourage learners to get up and get to know each other. Individuals each receive the classmate inventory handout included and use it to fill in information about their fellow scholars. Once they...

Film imitates life; that's what they say. Using performance theory to tie the lesson together, learners attempt to understand memory and daily rituals as seen in art, film, and life. They read two chapters from the book, watch the...

Help your class find their writing voices with this lesson which uses the work of Ralph Fletcher to guide a "Prompt in Reverse" activity. Using the chapter "First Pen" from Fletcher's Marshfield Dreams, learners decipher what they...

This annotated bibliography and list of websites are valuable resources for any study of the Holocaust and/or of Elie Wiesel's Night.

Define and write proverbs! Learners define proverbs, use the Internet to find weather-related proverbs, and talk with their parents to learn other proverbs. There's a well-structured worksheet included here. 

If you are planning a unit on memoir and autobiographical narrative, you should consider this resource. Using Internet research skills, pupils review works by James Frey and Henry David Thoreau. In response to these works, learners...

Distinguish between primary and secondary source documents using the theme of philanthropy. Middle schoolers discuss Anne Frank: The Diary of Young Girl as a way to study the past using a primary source. Then they investigate how to...

A getting-to-know-you activity that is perfect for the beginning of the year! Kids craft their portrait out of clay, then make a mobile by dangling ceramic representations of things they love. This project builds self-awareness, motor...