Description
Graded Assignments
Lesson 12 Assignment: Write brief (four or five sentences) answers to these questions. (40 points)
What does Lukens say are the three essentials in a biography? How must these interact to produce a work of literature you would consider successful?
As a teacher, what techniques would you use to interest a child in reading a biography?
Luken says that there are two separate responsibilities of the biographer; one of history, and one of individual. What are these important responsibilities of the biographer?
What are some of the motives that may lead you to read about the lives of others?
Lukens remarks that, “Invention is sometimes the biographer’s compromise.” What does this mean? By what standards should you evaluate “invention” in biographical fiction?
After reading the section on “tone and style,” you should have a lengthy list of the characteristics of biography you could use to analyze a work. What are the most important three items of tone and style on your list? Why do you consider each so important?
Lukens explains how biography, like other literature, needs a concept that “can unify the account to make it a coherent whole.” What does this mean?
You see that didacticism is also a problem in biography, as it is generally in literature. Lukens suggests that it might be “pardoned” here. Explain why you agree or not.
