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ELA 4: Famous Biographies 30 Views
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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.
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]
Full Transcript
- 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]
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