Biography questions to ask elementary students
100 biography questions...
Teaching Biographies: Activities and Ideas
Some great biographies about Benjamin Franklin include: Ben Franklin His Wit and Wisdom by Alan Schroeder
Who Was Ben Franklin?
by Dennis Fradin
Now and Ben by Gene Barretta
Although all of these books are excellent, I chose to begin by using How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning by Rosalyn Schanzer.
Before we read this book, I had the students to do a variation of an ABC brainstorm activity.
Biography questions to ask elementary students
With ABC brainstorm, students write what they know about a given topic using each letter of the alphabet. Instead of ABC's, we did a BEN brainstorm. Students wrote one fact about Ben Franklin with each of the 3 letters: "B", "E", and "N".
(3 facts are much faster to write than 26.) I discovered that many of my students knew very little of Ben Franklin or thought he was one of our presidents. After we discussed our prior knowledge, we then discussed characteristics of biographies.
My sweet teacher friend next door has this ado