1. Biographies, Autobiographies and Memoirs What is the difference?

2. Informational Nonfiction  Any writing that informs or gives facts.  Often has a Table of Contents, Index, and Glossary.  May have other text features such as headings, captions, bold or italic print, maps, photographs, charts and diagrams.

4. Literary Nonfiction  Writing based on real events but written in a way to entertain.  Reads like a story and has elements found in fiction like characters, setting and plot.  Since it is nonfiction the elements above must be real not imagined.  The story’s purpose is to entertain while informing.

6. Three Main Forms of Literary Nonfiction.  Biography  Autobiography  Memoir

7. Biography  Information about a person’s life written by another person.  Subject is the person the biography is about and the biographer is the author.  Written in third person: he, she, they…  Usually a biography takes on a nonfiction format with table of contents, glossary and timelines.

8. Autobiography  The history of a person’s life written by that person.  Autobiographies are usually told in first person: I, me, my, we, us…  Autobiographies are usually a story of someone’s complete life up to the point when it is written.

9. Memoir  A memoir is the story of an event in someone's life and not about the person's whole life.  Memoirs can be biographical (written by someone else) or autobiographical (written by the person the story is about)  To keep them straight, think of the prefix bi as in bicycle. A bicycle has two wheels. A biography involves two people: the author of the biography and the person the biography is about