Constructing and Engaging Biography: Considerations for High School English Teachers

Author(s): Jacqueline Edmondson

Source: The English Journal, Vol. 101, No. 5 (May 2012), pp. 44-50
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
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 Jacqueline Edmondson

Drawing on her experience

Constructing and as a published biographer
of Jerry Garcia, John
Engaging Biography: Lennon, Jesse Owens,
Condoleezza Rice, and
Considerations for High others, the author raises
important critical
School English Teachers questions and shares ideas
for encouraging students to
read and write this genre.

Biography remains the least theorized of genres, even though it has been part of our reper
toire at least since the days of Suetonius, the Kitty Kelley of the Roman set. . . . Readers
don't quite know what to do with a truth that is neither quite science nor exactly art.

I
—-Jay Parini

n our contemporary contexts, young wise. These life stories teach us and potentially fuel
people are accustomed to life story; our imagination as we make decisions about how
indeed, their lives are saturated we wish to live our lives in the present and future.
with constructions of their stories I approach questions about biography and
and those of others, whether created by themselvesyoung people's engagement with the genre from a
or their "friends" on social networks. Multimedia unique perspective as someone who writes biogra
outlets convey often detailed stories of more-famous phies intended for adolescent readers and as some
others, whether celebrities or those experiencing one who works as a teacher educator. As an author,
fleeting fame due to some unusual circumstance. I struggle with the complexities of constructing life
Yet, it is difficult to ascertain the extent to which stories and the consequences of my decisions about
young people are given serious opportunities to slow how these stories are told.1 These struggles range
down the fast pace of the information flow of their from the many moral and ethical issues involved
lives to critically consider what these stories con in making private lives public to questions about
vey and why. Biographer Nigel Hamilton describes the trustworthiness of various accounts of another

our times as the "golden age for biography" (1) person's life. I understand biography to be both the
due in part to the multiple forms and occasions to "record and interpretation of real lives—the lives
engage the genre, and many scholars have noted of others and of ourselves" (Hamilton 21), and so
that biography has tremendous potential to con I engage in both recording and interpreting from
tribute to our understandings of ourselves, history, my vantage point as an author somewhat removed
democracy, and society. from the personal and public lives of the subjects
Biographies provide both possibilities and of my books. My hope is that the texts are writ
challenges for teachers and students; in other ten in ways that synthesize existing accounts into a
words, life stories provide educative opportunities text that serves as a richly contextualized life story
for citizens in democratic communities that are that introduces young readers to people in certain
fraught with possibilities and limitations. As we times and places. I also hope these biographies will
consider representations of people's lives, we con interest readers enough to continue to pursue ad
struct our own stories with and against these texts ditional texts about the person, including music,
as we move through time and place to consider how films, poems, exhibits, and other multimedia ven
the conditions of our lives can and should be other ues that will extend and complicate the information

44 English Journal 101.5 (2012): 44-50

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 Jacqueline Edmondson

in some way to provoke further critical understand
ings about the individual and the time and place in
which he or she lived so readers may consider their
lives and the representations of their lives.
Lives are crafted from perspectives that serve
various groups in certain times and places. Texts are
constructed according to choices that authors and
publishers make, and these have multiple justifica
tions that result in sometimes competing accounts
of a person's life. To provide some type of stereo-rep
resentation, readers must consult multiple sources in
self-reflective engagement (Why do I like this ver
sion over others? Is this the same story, or a different
one?). In this way, readers learn about the subject
beginning teachers in the genre, and several men
tioned how their disinterest was compounded when
they struggled as students to read books for their bi
ography units that were dated and/or uninteresting.
Because I find biography to be an important
and unavoidable component of contemporary life,
my hope with this particu
lar article is to begin a con My hope with this
versation about biography particular article is to
among English teachers that begin a conversation
will encourage different en
about biography among
gagements with the genre in
English teachers that
classrooms, and ultimately
more nuanced understand will encourage different

and the author, but also about themselves as they engagements with the
ings of the complexities,
construct the story of their own lives against those challenges, contradictions,
genre in classrooms, and
of the others they engage (How am I like this per and consequences of life sto ultimately more nuanced
son? Would I make the same decisions?). No single ries. To situate these issues,
understandings of the
text can convey every aspect of a life story—there I will share examples from
complexities, challenges,
are always gaps, omissions, and differing perspec my work that were part of
a recent conversation with a
contradictions, and
tives that can make one story different from another,
even when dealing with the same set of facts, and group of English teachers as consequences of life
there is no such thing as a definitive biography, al we explored four key ques stories.

though some writers may make claims to such.
Yet, as a teacher educator, when I talk with
teachers and young people about their engage
ments with biography in high schools, or when I
review articles written about high school English
curricula that include biography, I wonder whether
school experiences provide opportunities for teachers
and young people to engage the complexities of life
tions about biography and
the authors of biography. I conclude with ideas for
classroom practices to engage these questions.
Constructing Biography
I recently took some examples of my biography
work to a group of teachers where we discussed the

stories in critical and significant ways. More to the challenges I face in writing biography and the im
point, it seems that high school English classrooms plications these complexities may hold relative to
primarily provide students singular versions of bi the role of biography in high school English class
ography, presented as uncomplicated truth, even in rooms. The following questions and points of inter
est evolved from that conversation.
those rare cases when we ask students to read mul
tiple stories about a person's life. My recent conversa
tions with new teachers confirmed these positions. Who is telling the story and why?
They described their own high school experiences in Writers hold particular sets of beliefs or ideologies,
ways that are consistent with accounts in past issues and understanding the author's position is critical
of English Journal', biography was used to develop re to understanding the way a life story is constructed.
search and writing skills in high school, includingA biographer's view of the world allows some things
interviewing skills and oral history writing (Keatto be told in particular ways to forward a position,
ing; Underwood; Yanushefski); biography was usedand it allows some things to go unnoticed or unsaid.
to introduce them to important American figures The purpose of the biographies I write is to
(Simpson); and teachers encouraged them to chooseintroduce high school students and general readers
their own biography during a unit on biography in to a person situated in a particular time and place.
English class, typically in tenth grade (Graham).While this often involves synthesizing a great deal
None of these experiences seemed to interest theseof information into relatively short and accessible

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 Constructing and Engaging Biography: Considerations for High School English Teachers

texts, this is far from objective work. I have relation
ships with the people who are the subjects of my
books through my own life experiences, even though
I have not personally met them. For instance, I re
member clearly when Venus Williams first began to
play professional tennis, and I admired her as she
marched on the tennis court as a young player, her
all provide glimpses into the brilliant, impassioned,
and complicated person that John Lennon was.
Some biographers take freedoms with their
claims that I do not, particularly relative to ques
tions of representation. In other words, as an author,
I am not in a position where I can lay claim to what
it feels like to be an African American male in the

hair woven into beads symbolizing pride in her Af
rican American culture. I continue to be impressed
with the athleticism, power, and beauty the Wil
liams sisters have both on and off the tennis court. I
enjoyed Jerry Garcia's music and was enthralled as a
young person by the Deadhead culture. Similarly, I
enjoyed John Lennon's music and remember vividly
the day I learned of his death.
These experiences, even from a distance, in
fluence how my biographies are constructed. As I
wrote about former Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, I included information about her activities
and engagements as the levees broke in New Or
leans during Hurricane Katrina. I recalled my own
sense of outrage as these tragic events unfolded and
the mainstream press reported that she was shop
ping in New York City, attending the Broadway
musical Spamalot, and playing tennis. I could have
early 1900s, nor can I make assumptions about how
it feels to face racism in American society today.
I will not write that someone thought or felt in a
particular way, unless I have a quite reliable source
where the subject actually explains what he or she
thought or felt. Instead, I choose to situate people
historically and explain the conditions people faced;
these decisions about telling the story lead to the
next question.
How is the story told and
under what conditions?
Some biographers have unique credibility. As the
first official biographer for the Beatles, Hunter Da
vies had a privileged perspective and was among
the first to capture John Lennon's life story in a
book. Davies acknowledged the challenges he faced
as a writer:

sought out more objective information, perhaps
finding Rice's own account of her commitments
during this devastating time or accounts published
in sources other than mainstream media, but I chose
not to do so. I believed I had my facts straight, I
lived at the time these events unfolded, and I told
what I knew to be true.
Certainly this is not unique to me, and care
ful readings of biographies by different authors help
to disclose the perspective of the biographer and his
or her opinions and assumptions. For instance, some
biographers are more accepting of Lennon's relation
ship with his second wife Yoko Ono, while others
clearly hold her in distain, and this influences their
telling of Lennon's story and the interpretation of the Lennon suggested so that his Aunt Mimi would not
impact Yoko had on his life, creativity, music, and
career. Lennon's accounts of his life tend to be satiri
cal and often reflect his own disregard for broader
conventions. Anyone wishing to understand this cre
Doing a biography of living people has the dif
ficulty that it is all still happening. It is very dan
gerous to pin down facts and opinions because
they are shifting all the time. They probably won't
believe half the things they said in the last four
chapters by the time you've read them. But at least
with living people you can get it all firsthand, as
long as they are willing to give up the time. . . .
I've tried to keep myself out of the book as much
as possible, though I'm sure my prejudices have
crept in all over the place. I've also tried to resist
the temptation to analyze. (375)
As a result, Davies made purposeful choices
about how he would tell this tale, some of which
be upset when she read the book, but others that
Lennon did not endorse. Mimi told very different
stories of Lennon's early days than Lennon told, and
this was one reason Lennon was dissatisfied with

ative and complex man more deeply must certainly the book. For Davies, it was difficult to corroborate
consider these texts, along with the many original either version since Mimi's husband George and
sources available online through YouTube and other Lennon's mother Julia had both passed away, and
sites. Reproductions of his artwork along with clips Lennon's father Alfred was absent from his son's
from concerts, interviews, documentaries, and films life. Davies noted some of the specific problems he

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 Jacqueline Edmondson

faced sorting out the facts of Lennon's childhood, contributing to a myth that Lennon was born and
and Lennon later claimed that Daviess book was died in the midst of violence.

"bullshit" (Wenner 84). In spite of the challenges Perhaps more complicated is when the subject
he faced in writing the biography, Davies latermakes
ex claims to events that probably did not occur.
plained: "I still like to think it was all true, though
This was a struggle in my work about Jerry Garcia,
there were other truths I could not tell at the time. who claimed to be a witness to his father's tragic
It was simply the truth about what had happened to drowning when Garcia was a young boy. Garcia
them up until that time, based on their own memo even includes graphic drawings of this life-altering
ries, and those closest to them, as well as my own event in his autobiography Harrington Street. Cer
investigations and observations" (lxvii). Daviess tainly no one disputed that Garcia was vacation
experiences demonstrate well the complexities of ing with his family when his father died, but his
telling life stories, including the various moral, mother was quite clear that Garcia was not with his
ethical, and personal decisions writers negotiate in father at the river when he actually drowned.
the process of making private lives public, which
What should be done about
lead us to questions about truth.
the contradictions?
How do we know the story As I worked on Jesse Owens's story, his daughter
is true and accurate? Marlene asked that I not include information from
This question involves a range of decisions that in the biography written by William J. Baker, which
clude what may appear to be mundane facts along she considered to contain
In considering the many
with broader questions about what may have oc many inaccuracies and be
a character assassination stories about John
curred at particular moments in time. For example,
when I worked on a biography about Olympic track of her father. As I read the Lennon, it quickly
star Jesse Owens, there were multiple, conflicting book, it was clear Baker's became clear there is a
accounts of his childhood from a range of cred research resulted in infor
great deal of competing
ible sources. I was fortunate to correspond with his mation that contradicted
and contradictory
youngest daughter Marlene as I wrote the manu the autobiographies Owens
information, some
script, but some of the details, including how many published about his life.
children were actually in Owens's family when he Some details, such as the perpetuated by
was a young boy, were not readily available because date when Owens married biographers and others
of problems with record keeping on share croppers' and when his first child was by Lennon himself.
farms during the time when he was growing up. born, had implications for
What was clear is that Jesse was the youngest child the family's reputation. I decided to honor Mar
in the family who survived into adulthood. lene's request, but I mentioned this in the introduc
This struggle over what one might think tion to the book so readers could seek out Baker's
could be easily identifiable fact also occurred as I biography if they were interested.
wrote a biography about John Lennon. Biographer In considering the many stories about John
Philip Norman claimed Lennon was born during Lennon, it quickly became clear there is a great
one of Hitler's air raids on Liverpool, a point that deal of competing and contradictory information,
was in several other credible accounts of Lennon's some perpetuated by biographers and others by
life, including one written by his half-sister Julia;Lennon himself. For example, when Lennon began
however, examinations of the newspaper records inrecording again in 1980 after taking a break for a
Liverpool at the time Lennon was born indicate that
few years, he conducted several interviews with his
this was likely not the case. Certainly there were wife Yoko Ono where they explained to the press
threats of air raids as Liverpool was bombed nearlyhow Lennon had been a house-husband who spent
80 times during World War II, but there is no con his time baking bread in the years after his second
clusive evidence that such bombing occurred on theson's birth. While it is true that Lennon was not
evening of October 9, 1940. Yet this information
performing or recording during this time, some bi
ographers questioned how accurate these claims of
is written in several biographies as a matter of fact,

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 Constructing and Engaging Biography: Considerations for High School English Teachers

domesticity were, and many recognized that both
Lennon and Ono were masterful in their manipula
tion of the media to create a public persona. Len
non's attorney Harold Seider explained: "The real
Lennon was not the public statements that he made.
They were made [that way] because they were public
statements, and he was looking to make a point.
. . . He couldn't give a shit [about lying] because
to a certain extent he had contempt for the media
because they bought all the crap. . . . He was there
to manipulate the media. He enjoyed doing that.
. . . He understood how to use the media" (qtd. in
Goldman 566; italics in original).
In addition to Lennon's outright lying in in
terviews, Lennon's public persona was sometimes
constructed in more subtle ways; for example, Len
non often adopted a Scouse accent, common among
the working class in Liverpool, to convey an image
of himself that contrasted with his middle-class up
bringing. Lennon sometimes did this to annoy his
Aunt Mimi, who had primary responsibility for
raising Lennon from the time
Biography is unique in
he was a young boy. Mimi in
its claims as history, art, sisted that Lennon speak in a
I hope these examples support my earlier point that
we should not seek out a definitive life story about
a person. No such thing can or should exist, and
no single biographer can capture a complete or true
tale in one account. Paul McCartney once com
plained to Beatles biographer Hunter Davies about
Philip Norman's biography of the band, pinpoint
ing some of the challenges related to deciding what
may have actually happened: "In an earthquake you
get many different versions of what happened by all
the people that saw it. And they're all true" (405).
While some facts may be verifiable (i.e., there was
an earthquake), perspective, the passage of time,
the audience for the story, and other factors quickly
complicate biographies. With any story, there are
multiple truths; consequently, it is important to
understand whose truth is being forwarded in a life
story and why.
Engaging Biography
Biography is unique in its claims as history, art, and
narrative, and to some extent truth. For this rea
son it does not fit neatly within already established

and narrative, and to
some extent truth. For
this reason it does not
fit neatly within already
established frameworks
for literary or historical
analysis.
proper way, and she frowned
on his friends who had broad
Scouse accents, particularly
George Harrison and Richard
Starkey (aka Ringo Starr). At
other times Lennon adopted
the accent to achieve a par
ticular effect, to convey that he
frameworks for literary or historical analysis. Biog
rapher Carl Rollyson explained, "Biography is not
merely a matter of having access to all the primary
sources. Biography is about narrative—present
ing a compelling interpretation that even the later
discovery of missing facts will not countermand"
(132). In what follows, I suggest some ideas that
may provide English teachers with opportunities to

was "of the people" and work consider biography with young readers.

ing class. These manipulations of public opinion are

not unique to Lennon; biographer Sarah Churchwell Biography should have a place in the English
classroom.
conveys similar difficulties with Marilyn Monroe's
life story as biographers and Monroe purposely cre All biographies are stories told from a point of
ated a persona, rather than person, in their work. view, complete with themes, characters, and plots.
More difficult than dealing with the facts and One could argue fairly persuasively, I believe, that
contexts is the interpretation of the story. Who was biographies are fictions, and their narratives deserve
the subject, and who makes claims to understand consideration and analysis along with other litera
him and his contributions to the world? How does ture that has become standard in many high school
the private person intersect or not with the public English classrooms. Yet simply allowing students
persona? What about a person's private life shouldto choose a biography, read it, and report out is not
be exposed, by whom, and for what purpose? Memsufficient to critically engage the genre in ways that
ories are problematic, and human stories are always lead to critical understandings of texts and contexts
told from differing perspectives and with differentof lives. Instead, as educators we need to rethink the
alliances. While this is just a brief glimpse at somepresentation and engagement of biography with
of the complexities involved in writing biography,young people to include questions raised above

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 Jacqueline Edmondson

with a variety of texts that range from print form Classroom Strategies
to multimedia.
Teachers could engage students more critically in
biography through purposeful work with different
Text choices are important. texts about the same subject, literally putting one
Sometimes it is not necessary to read an entire, text against another to reveal contradictions, gaps,
lengthy biography to come to understand impor and consistencies in stories that lead to questions
tant qualities of a person or historical influences onabout why stories are told in particular ways, by
the decisions or events of someone's life. Instead, whom, and toward what end. These ideas would
short excerpts from different biographies about the expand beyond more typical practices of summariz
same person or series of events can result in deepering, role-playing, and creating timelines, and could
help to engage the four questions I raise here (who
understandings of the complexities of human life
is telling the story and why; how is the story told
and the human condition. It is important that truly
and under what conditions; how do we know the
different biographies are engaged—not simply the
story is true and accurate; and what should be done
same story told by different authors. People with
about the contradictions).
different purposes, relationships to the subject, and
varying points of view should be taken into account. Some practical strategies leading to more crit
ical engagement could include the following:

Biography does not need to tell only the good 1. Literature circles could be comprised of
things or be only about those who inspire. students who have read different biographies
about the same subject, and discussions could
Scholar Mary Catherine Bateson explained that bi compare the different influences on the
ographies can give us perspective on our own lives author of the biography (time, place,
as we come to understand choices other people made connection to subject, etc.), questions about
under certain conditions and in particular contexts. how the subject is represented and by whom,
Yet Bateson also warned that biographies risk telling and explorations of gaps in the stories (see
stories of the lives of people as though there is some Johnson and Freedman for more specific
well-delineated quest, some journey through time examples). Students in the literature circle
toward an end that is specific, predetermined, and could then construct a meta-biography
concrete. Such an idealist retelling of a person's life that takes a composite author perspective to
explain the ways in which the biographies
is not particularly realistic, nor is it necessarily help
they considered were constructed, why, and
ful for readers. Instead, Bateson suggested that it is
by whom along with any contradictions or
best to tell human stories as they are: continually in
gaps in the information.
the process of being redefined amid circumstances
2. Jackdaws, a collection of materials that
and conditions that may or may not have been an exemplify the primary and secondary sources
ticipated. She encouraged the study of the "creative used in a project, could be assembled by the
potential of interrupted and conflicted lives, where students. The source materials might include
energies are not narrowly focused or permanently letters, music, newspaper accounts, and
pointed toward a single ambition" (9). These sto material artifacts from the time period in
ries do not always need to be about the rich and which the person lived. This could help
the famous; in fact, biographies about lesser-known students gain perspective on the biography
people sometimes contain the most profound les and subject and deepen understandings about
the accuracy of the biography through a
sons and can have widespread impact (McCourt ').
better understanding of the historical context.
However, market pressures sometimes dictate the
3. Different media can be used to explore the
subjects for biography and people are often more in
effects of how stories are told and by whom.
terested in reading about those who are famous, so
Students could use many multimedia tools to
it is not always easy to find published biographies construct a biography (podcasts, film,
about those who are less well-known. For examples, slideshow, song, etc.) and explore the various
the biographies I wrote were guided by the pub ways in which the media impact the
lisher who had specific series and audiences in mind. information conveyed about an individual.

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 Constructing and Engaging Biography: Considerations for High School English Teachers

I encourage English teachers to consider biog
raphies in all their complexities and contradictions,
and to take into account multiple, differing, and
even competing perspectives of authors. In doing
so, readers should intentionally seek out compli
cations that provide insight into time, place, and
the consequences of particular actions. As multiple
sources and different texts are considered, teachers
can play a critical role in understanding the com
plexities that are part of our everyday lives. 0
Davies, Hunter. The Beatles. New York: McGraw, 1985.
Print.
Goldman, Albert. The Lives of ]ohn Lennon. New York: Mor
row, 1988. Print.
Graham, Helen L. "A Plan for Teaching the Biography."
English Journal 30.3 (1941): 238-41. Print.
Hamilton, Nigel. How to Do Biography. Cambridge: Har
vard UP, 2008. Print.
Johnson, Holly, and Lauren Freedman. Developing Critical
Awareness at the Middle Level: Using Texts as Tools for
Critique and Pleasure. Newark: IRA, 2005. Print.
Keating, Michele. "Exploring Charles M. Russell and Oth
ers through Biography." English Journal 85.8 (1996):
66—69- Print.

Notes
McCourt, Frank. Angela's Ashes. New York: Scribner, 1996.
Print.
1. I have published biographies for high school readNorman, Philip. John Lennon: The Life. New York: Harper,
ers about Venus and Serena Williams, Jesse Owens, Condo 2009- Print.
leezza Rice, Jerry Garcia, and John Lennon. Each project is Parini, Jay. "Biography Can Escape the Tyranny of Facts."
mentioned in this article. Chronicle of Higher Education 4 Feb. 2000: A 72.
2. Special thanks to Dr. Anne Elrod Whitney and Print.
the teachers in her Language and Literacy Education 412 W Roilyson, Carl. A Higher Form of Cannibalism?: Adventures in
class (Fall 2010). the Art and Politics of Biography. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee,
3. This is one example, although widely considered 2005. Print.
to be a memoir. Debate about the variety of life stories is Simpson, Anna. "Achievement of Basic Aims through
beyond the scope of this article. Reading Biography." English Journal 33.5 (1944):
252-54. Print.
Underwood, William. "The Body Biography: A Framework
Works Cited
for Student Writing." English Journal 76.8 (1987):
Baker, William J. Jesse Owens: An American Life. Champaign: 44-48. Print.
U of Illinois P, 2006. Print. Wenner, Jann. Lennon Remembers. San Francisco: Straight
Bateson, Mary Catherine. Composing a Life. New York: Arrow Books, 2000. Print.
Grove, 1989- Print. Yanushefski, Juliana. "The Biography: The Research Proj
Churchwell, Sarah. The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe. New ect as Literary Discourse." English Journal 78.5
York: Holt, 2004. Print. (1989): 50-58. Print.

Jacqueline Edmondson is associate dean for undergraduate and graduate studies at Pennsylvania State University, Univer
sity Park, Pennsylvania. She is currently editing Music in American Life: The Songs, Styles, Stars and Stories That Shaped Our
Culture for ABC-CLIO (in press, 2013), which includes a number of biographies. Email her atjedmondson@psu.edu.

READWRITETHINK CONNECTION Lisa Storm Fink, RWT

"Bio-graph: Graphing Life Events" combines the precision of a gra

ence. Students interview others in an attempt to choose life events
rating system to communicate their importance to others. Students
of the most important events in their life. They then choose ten ev
to extremely positive. Students next use an online tool to create a v
dents select two events from the graph and write short description
descriptions to develop into a biographical piece. The graph can cont
and essays, and the lesson can be a resource for writing ideas that
out the school year, http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-re
events-1021.html

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