HANDOUT 1

Theme : Biographical Recount Text

Biography Text

Arranged by:
Amy Firstyani
Class B PPG Daljab PBI UNNES

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 BAHAN AJAR
Nama Sekolah : SMA Negeri 2 Tebo
Mata pelajaran : Bahasa Inggris (Peminatan)
Kelas/ Semester : X/ 1 (Ganjil)
Alokasi waktu : 3 x 45 menit
Tema : Biographical Recount Text

Kompetensi Dasar:
3.1 Membedakan fungsi sosial, struktur teks, dan unsur kebahasaan beberapa teks
recount lisan dan tulis dalam bentuk biografi dengan memberi dan meminta
informasi terkait tokoh terkenal, sesuai dengan konteks penggunaannya.

4.2 Teks recount dalam bentuk biografi

4.1.1 Menangkap makna secara kontekstual terkait fungsi sosial, struktur teks, dan unsur
kebahasaan teks recount lisan dan tulis, dalam bentuk biografi terkait tokoh
terkenal
4.1.2 Menyusun teks recount lisan dan tulis, dalam bentuk biografi, terkait tokoh
terkenal, dengan memperhatikan fungsi sosial, struktur teks, dan unsur
kebahasaan, secara benar dan sesuai konteks

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PETA KONSEP:

Biographical
Recount

Generic
Meaningful
Structure and
Story Social Function

Language
Feature

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 HOW TO USE THIS HANDOUT

To make our learning activities easier to

understand, there are some steps that you
must follow:
1. Try to understand the learning aims.
2. Read the explanation carefully and try to
comprehend it.
4. If you feel that you are still confused, read
the materials once more.

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 BIOGRAPHICAL TEXT

Video for Brainstorming

Video transcript:
William Henry Gates III was born on
October 28, 1955. He is one of the
world's richest people and perhaps
the most successful businessman ever.
He co-founded the software giant
Microsoft and turned it into the world’s
largest software company. He is the
best-known entrepreneur of the PC
revolution. He has also written two
best-selling books and started his own
charity with his wife.
Gates was fascinated with electronics from a young age. In 1975 he read
about a small technology company. He contacted them to see if they were
interested in a computer program he had written. This led to the creation of
Microsoft. Gates later struck a deal with IBM that put Microsoft's Windows on IBM
computers. This deal made Microsoft a major player in the IT industry.
Gates was in charge at Microsoft from 1975 until 2006. He was an active
software developer at the beginning. He had a vision that computers could
change everyone’s life. He helped make this vision come true and developed
many products that are now part of modern life. His management style has been
studied and copied around the world.

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 CONCEPT OF BIOGRAPHICAL RECOUNT

a. Definition
It is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic
facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's
experience of these life events. and may include an analysis of the subject's
personality.

b. Function
To know a person’s story about his/ her life outside of any accomplishment
this person may be known for and give lots of information and to educate
the readers.

c. Characteristic of Biography Text

 Describe and discuss the life of a real person
 Information is based on fact
 Incidents, dialogue, and people are accurate and from a reliable source
using first person accounts when available
 The person's life story is told with respect to other people and events of the
time in which they lived
 Develops an understanding of the places, times, events, and other people
when the person lived
 Tells the story in a style and tone that the reader/listener can relate to the
person and believe in their humanness
 Develops a person as a real and interesting person not a persona or
stereotypical member of a particular group.

d. Generic Structure
 Orientation
Giving the readers the background information of the person
Containing narrated biodata such as full name, place and date of
birth.
 Events
presented in chronological order
part of the events or events experienced by the character
an explanation of a good story in the form of problem solving,
career processes, and various events that have been experienced
by the character
 Re-orientation
A conclusion or a comment by the writer

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 Telling about the contribution or the contribution of the person
views of the author of the character

Example:
Structure Identification

Abraham Lincoln was

born in 1809 in Kentucky
(USA). He worked on the
farm of his father. He
attended school for less
than a year, but taught
ORIENTATION himself to read and write.
He did different types of
jobs before he settled as a
highly successful lawyer.
He was gradually drawn
to politics.

The country was having

problems regarding the
practice of slavery. The
white men owned large
farms in the southern
states, Blacks were
brought from Africa to
EVENTS
work on these farms, they
were kept as slaves. The
people of northern states
were against this practice
of slavery and wanted to
abolish it, The Constitution
of America is based on
the equality of man.
Therefore, there was no
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 place for slavery in that
country,

At this difficult time,

Abraham Lincoln was
elected President of the
USA in 1860. He wanted to
solve the problem of
slavery. The southern
states were against the
abolition of slavery. This
brought the unity of the
country in danger. The
southern states were
prepared even to form a
new country. Abraham
Lincoln wanted all the
states to remain united.

He faced many problems.

He wanted to preserve
the unity of the country at
any cost. Finally a civil war
broke out between the
northern and southern
states. He fought the war
bravely and declared, 'A
Nation cannot exist half
free and half slave.' He
won the war and kept the
country united.

RE-ORIENTATION Lincoln was elected

president for a second
term. He was not against
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 anybody and wanted
everybody to live in
peace. He made sincere
efforts to heal the
people's wounds caused
by the war. In 1862,
Lincoln declared that
from then onwards all
slaves would be free. This
made him very popular
among the people.
Lincoln was assassinated
in 1865.

e. Language feature
 Using simple past tense
Function Forms Example

S + V2 + … He continued his study.

Simple past tense is
used to tell the past
activities or events.
S + was/ Were+ … She was a smart woman.

 Using temporal sequence and temporal conjunction

E.g. His parents separated when he was two years old.

 Focusing on specific participant, and use of action verbs

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 BIOGRAPHICAL TEXT

RA KARTINI
RA Kartini, in full Lady Raden Adjeng Kartini, was born April
21, 1879, Majong, Java, Indonesia. She was a Javanese
noblewoman whose letters made her an important symbol for the
Indonesian independence movement and for Indonesian
feminists.

Her father being a Javanese aristocrat working for the Dutch

colonial administration as governor of the Japara Regency (an
administrative district), Kartini had the unusual opportunity to
attend a Dutch school, which exposed her to Western ideas and
made her fluent in Dutch. During adolescence, when she was
forced to withdraw to the cloistered existence prescribed by
tradition for a Javanese girl of noble birth, she began to
correspond with several Dutch friends from her school days. She also knew and was influenced by
Mevrouw Ovink-Soer, wife of a Dutch official and a dedicated socialist and feminist. In her letters
Kartini expressed concern for the plight of Indonesians under conditions of colonial rule and for the
restricted roles open to Indonesian women. She resolved to make her own life a model for
emancipation and, after her marriage in 1903 to a progressive Javanese official, the Regent of
Rembang, she proceeded with plans to open a school for Javanese girls.

Kartini died at the age of 25 of complications after the birth of her first child, but J.H.
Abendanon—former director of the Department of Education, Religion, and Industry—arranged for
publication of her letters in 1911, under the title Door duisternis tot licht (“Through Darkness into
Light”). The book enjoyed great popularity and generated support in the Netherlands for the Kartini
Foundation, which in 1916 opened the first girls’ schools in Java, thus fulfilling Kartini’s ambition. Her
ideas were also taken up by Indonesian students attending Dutch universities, and in 1922 an
Indonesian translation of the letters was published. Although Indonesian nationalist aims went far
beyond her ideas, she became a popular symbol, and her birthday is celebrated as a holiday.

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 BIOGRAPHICAL TEXT
MOHAMMAD HATTA
Mohammad Hatta was born in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, Indonesia, on August 12, 1902. Although his
father died while he was an infant, he was raised in a secure, well-to-do family environment which
encouraged scholarly achievement and faithfulness to Islam. These characteristics became his signature
during his career as one of the foremost intellectuals in the Afro-Asian anti-colonial movement.

As a child Hatta received the best education available in the Netherlands Indies, including Dutch-
language secondary schooling in Jakarta. By the time he left for the Netherlands to continue his studies at
the Rotterdam School of Commerce he had already developed a keen interest in political affairs, having
served while still in his teens as an officer of youth organizations in West Sumatra and Jakarta. Shortly after arriving in Rotterdam he became treasurer of the
Indonesian Union (Perhimpoenan Indonesia) at a time when it was adopting explicitly political programs.

Hatta did not return to Indonesia, as he and his nationalist compatriots called the colony, until 1932. During these ten years he emerged as the overseas
leader of the Indonesian nationalist movement and became acquainted with counterparts representing other independence movements, including the Indian
leader Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1927 Hatta was accused by Dutch authorities of writing treasonous articles. After being imprisoned for a year and a half, Hatta
successfully defended himself and his associates in a rousing, uncompromising courtroom speech which, upon publication in Indonesia, set a militant tone for
the independence movement.

Although Hatta subsequently was overshadowed by the more flamboyant and aggressive Sukarno, many of his positions became important not only in
Indonesia but internationally. He was an articulate champion of non-alignment and of socialism based mainly on cooperatives and decentralization. He also
believed that Indonesian socialism should be firmly grounded in Islam.

Because he was from Sumatra and was so different in personal style from Sukarno, a Javanese, the two came to be regarded as thoroughly
complementary. But these same differences caused their partnership to break down, and when Sukarno abandoned parliamentary processes in favor of "guided
democracy" in the later 1950s the gulf between them became unbridgeable. The collapse of Sukarno's regime in confusion and disrepute in 1966 did not lead to
Hatta's return to a formal political position, however; the successor government under Suharto was dominated by the army, an organization which Hatta
regarded as corrupt, inefficient, and unsuited for governance under any circumstances.

Mohammad Hatta remained in the background of Indonesian politics throughout the 1970s except for a brief period in 1978 when he agreed to serve as
general chairman of the Foundation for the Institute of Constitutional Awareness. The foundation provided a forum for bold expressions of criticism from a wide
range of opponents to the Suharto government. It was unable to weaken significantly the army's control of public institutions, however, and it lost much of the
momentum which it may have been gaining when Hatta died on March 14, 1980.

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