AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
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What is an autobiography? Simply put, an autobiography is the story of one’s life as written by oneself. That said, many people think that their lives should be written about, but lack the writing talent to tackle this project alone. For that reason, many autobiographies are cowritten with the help of someone other than the subject, or are narrated by the subject to a writer. Cowritten, or collaborative autobiographies may begin with the phrase, “as told to.” Whether or not the subject is the individual who actually writes the words of his or her story, most autobiographies are told from a first person point of view. This differs from a biography, which is clearly acknowledged as being written by a person other than the subject. Thus the autobiographer usually ventures beyond dates and facts, personalizing the story rather than simply retelling the events of his or her life. It narrates the most important facts of someone’s life, his or her childhood, adolescence, military service, wars he or she lived through, educational background, professional life, marriage, children, and most outstanding achievements. Also it tells anecdotes, memories, trips and dearly cherished moments. It links these events to the contemporary values and attitudes of that person. Biographies use normal narrative forms, literary techniques and traditional story telling techniques to express the life of the subject of the biography. They difference is that it is nonfiction. This does not mean they don’t hold bias. These texts usually hold some form of bias. What kinds of choices do you think the author could make that influences the bias of the text. An autobiography has the following characteristics: 1. Is about a real person about themselves 2. Describes the person's environment 3. Provides anecdotes or details that show the person in action 4. Shows how the person affects and is affected by other people
Research Questions 1. How is an autobiography different to a biography or a memoir? 2. Which is more popular? 3. What are the top five selling biographies/autobiographies/memoirs at the moment in Australia? Why do you think these appeal to people? What kinds of people tend to write autobiographies?
EXCERPT FROM – FRED HOLLOWS CHAPTER 1 1. Why is this chapter entitled “Young Fred”? 2. Why does Hollows begin with the song verse? What do you think he is trying to emphasise? 3. In the first paragraph, what does Hollows emphasise as being important? 4. Draw a detailed family tree based on the information in this chapter. 5. What kind of childhood did Hollows have? 6. Find some examples of things Hollows did in his childhood that reflect and link to his adult values. 7. What do you think are the three main things that influences him at this part of his life? Why are these so important? How has Hollows expressed their importance? ACTIVITY Find an example of an event from your childhood that reflects or has influenced your values today. Try to summarise the event in an interesting way – use humour, descriptive language, quotes and other techniques so your audience can picture what happened. Then link this with a contemporary value of yours. This might be done by aligning this event with a more recent one, or a quote, which might emphasise this link, or some other way.
EXCERPT FROM – LIONHEART BY JESSE MARTIN CHAPTER 1 1. Why is this chapter entitled “The First Steps”? 2. Why does Martin begin with a diary entry form a part of the story he isn’t telling yet? 3. In the diary entry, what kind of relationship is Martin shown to have with his boat? How does he do this? 4. What kind of technique does Martin use in many of the first paragraphs? What effect does this have? 5. What were Martin’s parents like? 6. What kind of childhood did Martin have up until this point? 7. Find some examples of things Martin did in his childhood that reflect and link to his adventurous spirit. 8. Why is his relationship with his Pop so important? What kind of language does Martin use to express this? 9. Why does Martin refer to Paul Kelly’s song? ACTIVITY Think about your goals for the future. What are you doing to try to achieve them? Turn this into a poem about reaching for goals and the obstacles that you may encounter.
EXCERPT FROM – THE TEARS OF STRANGERS BY STAN GRANT CHAPTER 1 1. Why is this chapter entitled “My Father’s Son”? 2. Why does Grant begin with a quote from Plato? What does it imply about Grant? 3. What is the effect of the line “…and on his fingers were two names from his past that would eventually collide with my future.”? 4. What is the effect of the combination of Aboriginal terms, ‘boob’, ‘boong’ with the Latin term ‘prima facie’? (Prima facie means on its first appearance, or by first instance; at first sight. The literal translation would be "from first face".) 5. What were Grant’s parents like? What was his relationship with his parents like? 6. What is Grant’s view on the ‘truth’? Why is this pertinent given his career choice? 7. What kind of language does Grant use when he’s writing about his response to the letter? 8. Why does Grant address the reader directly on page 20? What effect do you think he intended it to have? 9. The Australian values in regards to Aboriginal people in Grant’s childhood context give us an insight to how it would have affected him. He does not always define this directly. Why do you think he does this? ACTIVITY Think about your cultural background. What are the stereotypes associated with it? (Even “white” Australian’s have stereotypes – think carefully.) How does this effect how you think about yourself? Do you follow these, because it’s expected of you, it comes naturally to you, in spite of them, or do you try to distant yourself from these stereotypes? Write a first person reflection on this/these event/s. Approximately 300500 words.