AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

WORD MEANING

• Auto - "self"
• Bio - "life"
• Graphy - "to write"

So, literally, it means "to write self life"

Or in more grammatical terms, "writing about your own life"

BIOGRAPHERS NEED:

• Documents
• Books
• News articles
• The person's own words
• Descriptions from fam/friends

AUTOBIOGRAPHERS NEED:

• ...their own memories...
• ...*maybe* a diary...

It's existed since at least around 300 AD (Libanius & Augustine)

NOTABLE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

• Thomas Jefferson
• Benjamin Franklin
• Helen Keller
• Mark Twain
• Adolf Hitler

NOTABLE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

• Maya Angelou
• Muhammad Ali
• Nelson Mandela
• Barack Obama
• Eminem

MEMOIRS

• Similar to autobiographies
• Focus on one big event
• Or a few small ones
• Rather than the entire lifetime

NOTABLE MEMOIRS

• "Night" - Elie Weisel during the Holocaust
• "Eat, Pray, Love" - a woman's adventure
• "Girl, Interrupted" - 2 years in a psych ward

FICTIONAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY

• The narrator wrote the story
• The narrator is fictitious
• (That means NOT REAL)

FICTIONAL AUTOBIO EXAMPLES

• "Catcher in the Rye"
• (Holden Caulfield)
• "Jane Eyre"

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SONGS

• "7 Things" - Miley Cyrus
• "Live Like You Were Dying" -McGraw
• "Wake Me Up (When September Ends)"
• "Piano Man" - Billy Joel

DISCUSSION Q'S

Why did people hundreds of years ago write autobiographies?

Why do people in today's society *usually* write autobiographies?

What should we learn from autobiographies?

Do you think your life is interesting enough to be an autobiography? Explain.

Do you think, based on your goals or dreams, your life would eventually make a good autobiography? Explain.

ASSIGNMENT

• Write a 6-sentence memoir
• About your favorite day ever
• We'll share a few at the end