Professional Documents
Culture Documents
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
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.