ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos

ELA 4: Famous Biographies 30 Views


Share It!


Description:

We're still waiting for our biography to come out. We're sure  someone  out there is working on it. We should be famous any day now. Just you watch. 

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:05

[Dino and Coop singing]

00:13

There are a whole lot of biographies out there. [Girl walking to the library]

00:16

Seriously.

00:17

Just head to your local library and check out the biography section.

00:20

It’s a sea of books! [Guy water skiing on a pile of books]

00:21

…Just don't try and waterski in it, …sounds painful. [The guy is hit by a wave of books and falls over]

00:24

Anyway, these biographies can be about important and interesting people from history like Maya [Biographies on a shelf]

00:28

Angelou, Winston Churchill, Helen Keller and Abraham Lincoln.

00:32

And yes, you can even find biographies about people who aren't quite as important. [Kim Kardashian biography]

00:35

Unless you really care about Kim Kardashian's selfie technique.

00:37

Then by all means, check it out. [Girl taking a selfie with a selfie stick]

00:39

But while many biographies are written about people that were already famous, sometimes

00:43

biographies can also make people famous by bringing attention and acclaim to people who [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

00:47

might otherwise have been forgotten by history.

00:49

Pretty cool, right?

00:51

Biographies can be especially useful when written about people who probably weren't

00:54

given a whole lot of credit back when they were alive.

00:56

Which is good news for basically any woman or racial minority living over fifty years ago. [Woman taking picture with selfie stick while other woman looks unimpressed]

01:01

But finding enough information to fill a book on someone who history kind of forgot?

01:05

It's not super easy.

01:06

It'd be like trying to write a biography about your great great great great grandmother. [Guy typing on the computer about his grandmother]

01:11

She was probably a cool lady…after all, she is related to you…but do you even know her name?

01:15

Yup.

01:16

Like we said, it's not a super easy task.

01:18

Researchers and historians spend countless hours sifting through primary sources that [Girl sat in a huge pile of books reading]

01:22

aren't always accessible to the public, all in an effort to bring light to those forgotten

01:26

by history.

01:27

Once done, these biographers produce what is called a “secondary source” in the [Dino pointing at a blackboard]

01:31

form of a biography, which is usually more to the point and accessible for the general

01:35

public than a primary source.

01:37

Usually.

01:37

You never know when a biography might have fangs.

01:40

Or rabies. [Rabid dog and man looks scared]

01:41

Anyway.

01:42

Think of the many primary sources as ingredients like flour, eggs and cocoa powder.

01:46

You probably don’t wanna eat all that stuff on its own.

01:48

Unless you want to use your mouth as a mixing bowl. [Guy with ingredients in his mouth]

01:50

But we don't recommend that.

01:52

A biographer can turn all of those ingredients into into an easy-to-consume chocolate cake.

01:56

Unlike the old and complex primary sources, secondary sources are often written in interesting, [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

02:02

creative, and easy-to-understand ways in order to appeal to everyone, whether or not they're

02:05

familiar with the topic.

02:07

So go check out the cake – uh, I mean biography – section in the library. [Girl walking in the library]

02:11

And while you're doing that, we're going to try and start a cake section in our local library. [People holding up slices of cake in the library]

Up Next

GED Social Studies 1.1 Civics and Government
39794 Views

GED Social Studies 1.1 Civics and Government

Related Videos

Fake News
11938 Views

How do you tell fake news from real news?

ELA 4: How Words Can Help
1205 Views

Sticks and stones, right? Well...only sometimes. It's a good idea to make sure your words aren't going to hurt others. Let's look at some ways to d...

ELA 4: Debating Like a Champ
744 Views

Learn to debate like a champ. It's way better than debating like a chimp. That just takes mudslinging to a whole new level.

ELA 4: Types of Biographies
277 Views

Today we'll learn about biographies and autobiographies. And no, the second one has nothing to do with the lives of cars.