Alternatives to the famous person report

What’s a "Famous Person Report"? Well, the most common incarnation of the Famous Person Report is the Famous African American Report, assigned in February. Next is probably the Famous Woman Report, assigned in March; others are the Inventor Report, the Famous Person from a Particular Foreign Country Report, and the President Report, which we’ve already covered.

These reports tend to be a mishmash of character education and appreciation for the history and culture of a particular group of people. The Famous African American Report, in particular, is often assigned in the hope of prodding students to appreciate the “contributions” of African Americans to American history and culture. We have argued elsewhere (see “Beyond Black History Month“) that a biographical report once a year is not sufficient to understand and appreciate the part played by millions of Americans in four centuries of our history, and that history of African Americans (and of all other groups of Americans) should be integrated into the curriculum, whether or not it is highlighted once a year as well. If “appreciation” of African Americans is the goal, students might be better served by a different type of research project.

Worse, too many biographical reports wind up as timelines of individual lives, with little thought about the subject’s character, the circumstances that produced it, or the real impact he or she had. Part of this might be the emphasis on famous people: if someone is truly and deservedly famous, it’s easy to turn a report into hero-worship, and if a student gets stuck with someone she’s never heard of, her temptation will be to focus on why the subject should be famous.

Fame, though, shouldn’t be the point. So when you assign a biographical report, start by considering what you really want your students to get out of it.

Why biography?

We believe there are two good reasons to assign a biographical report. The first is to have students learn about character. What in the subject’s life made him or her a great or a good person? What does it mean to be a great or a good person? How did he or she come to be famous; what did fame mean then, and was the subject’s fame justified? What adversities did the subject overcome to accomplish what he or she did? And, most importantly, what can we learn from this person’s experience that helps us to live better lives today?

The second reason to assign a biographical report is to have students learn more about the culture and/or historical circumstances that produced the individual in question. This second reason takes a very different perspective from the first — the exact opposite, in fact. The first type of biographical report is all about the individual and how he or she rose above his or her background; the second is all, or nearly all, about the background.

A really good and interesting assignment (and a really good and interested student) could combine the two perspectives, but it’s important for you, as the teacher assigning the report, to know what you want your students to learn — character or history and culture — before you write your assignment.

If you want students to understand an individual’s relationship to history and culture, you need to put that individual in context. If character education is your goal, be sure that the connection between the subject of the biography and the student’s own life is clear in the assignment. Don’t assume that students will make the connection on their own — or let them choose a person currently enjoying his or her “fifteen minutes of fame” whom the student may already admire but whose character is not, in an objective sense, particularly admirable.

Our alternative assignments are designed to examine both character and context. “The Not-So-Famous Person Report” offers two ways of learning about history by studying the lives of people who aren’t famous at all, through oral history and through documentary research in primary sources on the Web. For younger students, a “Living History Day” is a way to dramatize a famous person’s role in history.

Finally, you might decide simply to have students read and review a biography or autobiography of a famous person. There are excellent biographies out there, but not all are written for K–12 students. (Sadly, not all are really written to be read.) “Reading Biographies and Autobiographies” gives you suggestions for selecting books and for guiding students through their reading.

Next: The not-so-famous person report

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3.1 Alternatives to the famous person report

Why biography?