Identifying Personality Traits and Finding Evidence: 4th Grade Biography Project

The fourth graders have been engaged in a biography project. 

The students started the project by choosing a subject from our biography collection. It had to be in picture book format as they had to be able to read it during one library class. This project was adapted from a project I did with last year's fifth graders. You can read about that project on this blog post.

I switched the project up a bit so it was in better keeping with the grade level curriculum -- the fourth graders focus on personality traits and finding evidence in the text to support their thinking.  

It has taken a bit longer than expected due to snow days and vacations, but they are in the home stretch! Here's an approximate schedule for this project:

Week One: 

Explain Project

Show Examples (see above) 

Students choose a biography

Week Two:

Students read biographies and begin to take notes/capture thinking

Week Three:

Students determine the personality traits, find evidence in text, identify achievements/accomplishment

Week Four: 

Students complete work from the week before and write the six word memoir

Week Five: 

Students choose either a poster or Google Slides presentation for the project and begin creating it

Model finding images and citing sources

Week Six: 

Students finish product (poster or presentation)

Week Seven: 

Present their projects to each other

Here's a look at some of their work thus far. These are WIP and will be edited to style, spelling, etc. We'll be talking about font choice, color, layout, and other digital citizenship tips.