How To Write A Biography Report With Kids

Do you want an easy step-by-step process for teaching your students how to write a biography report? Support your students as they write their famous person reports using this simple seven step process.

What is report writing?

Report writing is a type of informative writing. ... and what is informative writing? Informative writing is meant to give information to the reader. The information increases the reader's knowledge about a topic. So ... when students write a report, they are learning to share information with others. And as teachers isn't that our goal?

Why teach kids how to write a famous person report?

We want kids to practice their writing ... and kids are often curious about famous people. They enjoy finding out the details about the life of a famous person that they can share with their family and friends. As they write their reports, students learn how to:

• conduct research to find out about their famous person,
• write sentences that contain important information, and
• create reports that provide information to their readers.

7 Steps of the Famous Person Report Writing Process

There are seven steps to the report writing process. They are:

• Step One: Choose Your Topic
• Step Two: Research Your Topic
• Step Three: Make Jot Notes
• Step Four: Write a Draft
• Step Five: Revise and Edit
• Step Six: Write a Good Copy
• Step Seven: Illustrate Report

How To Write An Famous Person Report - 7 Steps

The following steps are illustrated using pictures of the templates found in the Famous Person Report package. Whether you use this package or your own materials, follow this process as you walk your students through the report writing steps.

Step One: Choose A Topic

There are different ways that students can choose the topic for their famous person reports. Students can:

• choose their own famous person.
• pick the name of a famous person out of a hat.
• be assigned the name of famous person.

Step Two: Research Your Famous Person

Students can use different sources your students to find information about their famous people depending on the resources you have available. Students can use:

• websites such as Ducksters, Mocomi, and Fact Monster, or
• trade books.

Step Three: Make Jot Notes

Making jot notes is a difficult skill for students to master. Provide your students with jot note templates with targeted questions to support them with this process.

Step Four: Write a Draft

Once students have finished writing their jot notes, they can write their draft reports. Students take the information they have gathered on their jot note templates and make them into paragraphs for their famous person reports.

Step Five: Revise and Edit

Teachers can support their students as they revise and edit with differentiated writing checklists. Choose a checklist that matches the individual learning needs of your students. Students work through the checklist to make their writing better.

Step Six: Write a Good Copy

After students have went through the editing and revision process, they are ready to write a good copy for their biography report. Students can use differentiated templates or their own writing paper for the good copy of their reports.

Step Seven: Illustrate Report

The last step of the report writing process is adding color with illustrations to enhance what students have written in their famous person reports.

How to Differentiate Report Writing

• Give reluctant writers templates that require them to only find one fact for each research category.
• If students need a challenge, provide them with a template that encourages them to find three or more facts about each research category.

Materials shown in this blogpost are a part of the Biography Famous Person Report resource. It is available on TeachersPayTeachers.

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Until next time,

P.S. Many teachers are overwhelmed with teaching writing to their students. Get started today with the Writing Teacher's Roadmap Get Started Guide. Teaching writing activities online? Grab your FREE Google Slides writing resources and start using with your Grade 1, 2, and 3 students.