This article serves as an invitation to see the way the teaching of biography-driven writing has been increasingly pushed out of the secondary English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum in favor of highly structured, formulaic, and impersonal writing, and how this is a setback for students in their preparation for college and career writing. The…

Storytelling can help youth, families, and communities make sense of their experiences, allowing them to process the past and plan their futures (Bruner; Flores; Jones). The authors argue that the practice of storytelling in biographical learning can be especially powerful when working with youth of color and Indigenous youth--children whose…