Biographies are one of our best tools for diversifying the curriculum. In this article, we describe The Biography Clearinghouse, a free resource designed to inspire teachers to use high-quality biographies in their classrooms. We then elaborate on curricular possibilities in K-8 classrooms. We end with a discussion of the Investigate, Explore, and…

We present a sampling of recently published picturebook biographies with noteworthy endpapers. First, we highlight scholarship related to picturebook biographies and peritextual features. Second, we present examples of three ways endpapers function, using nine picturebook biographies while also incorporating pedagogical suggestions related to the…

Read-alouds of picturebook biographies offer children engaging windows into the lives and work of famous (and sometimes not-so-famous) mathematicians to observe and discuss their ways of learning and doing mathematics--their mathematical practices. The Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMPs), although generally embodied in the work of…

The purpose of this article is to explore how teachers can use biography breaks to address the National Council of the Social Studies C3 inquiry framework and in the process meet requirements of the Common Core State Standards. We begin by illustrating and explaining biography breaks. Then we introduce the C3 framework and explain as well as…

African American children's literature has a potentially powerful role to play in increasing reading engagement for African American boys. Unfortunately, this body of literature is not always used effectively in schools. Many teachers use African American books as an add-on to pre-exisiting curriculum rather than fully exploring the topics,…

The "Toolbox" column features content adapted from ReadWriteThink.org lesson plans and provides practical tools for classroom teachers. This issue's column features a lesson plan adapted from "Graphing Plot and Character in a Novel" by Lisa Storm Fink and "Bio-graph: Graphing Life Events" by Susan Spangler. Students retell biographic events…

Author Virginia Hamilton had the gift of creating lyrical phrases that captured the complexities of life. Among her most notable phrase is the idea of the "hopescape," the metaphoric description of the pains and joys, triumphs and defeats, longing, and dreams that make us human. The publication of an edited volume that compiles a sampling of…

People who have impacted generations have left legacies we can explore today through biographies. The 5L instructional design introduced in this article includes five components: Listen, Learn, Locate, Link, and Legacy. In the "Listen" section, teachers use storytelling and read-alouds to introduce individuals who shaped history. During…

Using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as a theoretical framework, a team of university staff and educators at a traditionally under-performing urban elementary school built a collaboration aimed at enhancing writing instruction. The current qualitative research study, which was part of this larger project, focused on biography writing in Eva…

Who is an American, what is the American experience, and what historical events are important enough to include in books for youth? These complex ideas are examined in a bolder, intellectually fresh manner in information books, biographies, and histories that have been published over the past several decades. Some examples of recent works are…