TYPES OF NONFICTION Memoir Diary Biography Autobiography

BIOGRAPHY  A story of a person’s life  The author may refer to letters, other books or interviews for research  Usually presents subject in a manner -Biased  May have gaps in the story  person POV written by someone else positive 3rd

AUTOBIOGRAPHY  A story of a person’s life  Includes: memories, thoughts and feelings  In form of personal essays/novels  Allows the author to clear up any misconceptions or spread by others.  1 st person POV written by that person. untruths

DIARY  A record of a writer’s thoughts, experiences and feelings.  Provides insight into what they are really like- lots of  Detailed recording of events b/c it is written  Helps the reader see a time and place vividly.  1 st Person POV daily emotions right when it happens.

MEMOIR  Written by the person who lived the event  Told in story format-  Some details may be made up or fictional to fill in gaps in the author’s memory.  Shares their own observations of significant events and people  1 st Person POV after the event happens.

from The Wright Brothers Orville was more impulsive, “bubbling over with ideas,” according to his niece. Among family and friends, he had a reputation as a tease and a practical joker. Among strangers, however, he seemed uncomfortably shy. He would clam up and fade silently into the background. Orville’s greatest pleasure was to take something apart, see how it worked, and put it back together. Wilbur was more of a visionary, fascinated by the big picture rather than its individual parts. He was the one who first dreamed of building an airplane… Biography

from The Invisible Thread I was born in California, recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag each morning at school, and loved my country as much as any other American –Maybe even more. Still, there was a large part of me that was Japanese simply because Mama and Papa had passed on to me so much of their own Japanese spirit and soul. Their own values of loyalty, honor, self-discipline, love, and respect for one’s parents, teachers, and superiors were all very much a part of me. There was also my name, which teachers couldn’t seem to pronounce properly even when I shortened my first name to Yoshi. And there was my Japanese face, which closed more and more doors to me as I grew older. How wonderful it would be, I sued to think, if I had blond hair and blue eyes like Marian and Solveig. Autobiography

from Dirk the Protector For a time in my life I became a street kid. It would be nice to put it another way but what with the drinking at home and the difficulties it caused with my parents I couldn’t live in the house. I made a place for myself in the basement by the furnace and hunted and fished in the woods around the small town. But I had other needs as well – clothes, food, school supplies – and they required money. I was not afraid of work and spent most of my summers working on farms for two, three and finally five dollars a day. This gave me enough for school clothes, though never for enough clothes or the right kind; I was never cool or in. But during the school year I couldn’t leave town to work the farms. I looked for odd jobs but most of them were taken by the boys who stayed in town through the summer. All the conventional jobs like working in the markets or the drugstore were gone and all I could find was setting pins in the small bowling alley over the Four Clover Bar. It had just six alleys and they were busy all the time – there were leagues each night from seven to eleven – but the pay for truly brutal work was only seven cents a line. There weren’t many boys willing to do the work but with so few alleys, it was still very hard to earn much money. A dollar a night was not uncommon and three was outstanding. Memoir

"Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they're sending all the Jews....If it's that bad in Holland, what must it be like in those faraway and uncivilized places where the Germans are sending them? We assume that most of them are being murdered. The English radio says they're being gassed." - October 9, 1942 "I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can't do anything to change events anyway. I'll just let matters take their course and concentrate on studying and hope that everything will be all right in the end." - February 3, but the minute I was alone I knew I was going to cry my eyes out. I slid to the floor in my nightgown and began by saying my prayers, very fervently. Then I drew my knees to my chest, lay my head on my arms and cried, all huddled up on the bare floor. A loud sob brought me back down to earth..." - April 5, 1944 "It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more" Diary