An alphabiography is an autobiography, often set as an English studies project for high school or college students, consisting of a set of twenty-six short stories or chapters about the writer's life.1 Each story or chapter has a title starting with a different letter of the alphabet, for example: "Apple growing", "Baseball", "Cynthia" etc. At the end a summation is undertaken.
Examples
The book Totally Joe by James Howe is about Joe Bunch, who is given an assignment to write his alphabiography – although he thinks it will be boring, it turns out to be the gateway for him to learn much about his own identity as a gay young adult.2
ReadWriteThink.org, a website sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association, includes a lesson plan for an alphabiography project.3
References
References
- Hoerr, Thomas R.; Sally Boggeman; Christine Wallach (2010). Celebrating Every Learner: Activities and Strategies for Creating a Multiple Intelligences Classroom. John Wiley and Sons. p. 269. ISBN 978-0-470-56386-1. Retrieved 7 December 2010.
- SimonSays - Totally Joe by James Howe
- Read Write Think - alphabiography project