In this lesson students are asked to explore how authors promote their autobiographies by writing engaging blurbs. It would ideal to use as part of a KS3 unit on autobiography.

The lesson starts by asking students to think about the difference between autobiographies and biographies as well as the meaning of root words - auto, bio, graphy. There is a slide to reveal the answers.

There is a pair task for students to do after reading a selection of blurbs where they are given questions to respond to. These extracts are from the autobiographies of Beth Mead, Ant Middleton, Javeno Mclean, Malala and the writer of A Street Cat Named Bob.

There are slides with the text on for teachers to annotate on a smart board.

There is a writing task which asks students to write a mini blurb to introduce themselves and their lives using the key descriptive skills to engage a reader.

This lesson, as my other lessons do, includes:

Starter tasks which introduce the main idea of the lesson
Handouts of extracts/text
Challenge tasks
Opportunities for pair and group talk within activities (‘Talk for Writing’)