Five-Week Plan
A week-by-week sequence from forms and evidence to research, voice, ethics, close reading and a finished profile.
Open resource →
Year 9 HEAP • English
Biographies
A five-week unit on life writing and perspective. Students examine how a life is shaped into story, whose version is told and what obligations a writer has to the people they represent. They research a subject, test evidence, analyse voice and structure, and draft a short profile. The packet is generic, public and free of school-specific material.
What this packet is. It contains 16 public resources, including this overview. Students move from the forms of life writing and the nature of memory to research, structure, voice, character, context, representation, ethics, interviews, close reading and profile writing. The examples are fictional, and no published biography, memoir, interview, photograph or archival document is reproduced. Success criteria are formative and labelled as such.
Unit outcomes
- Distinguish forms of life writing and explain the relationship between subject, biographer and reader.
- Explain how memory, evidence and selection shape a version of a life.
- Locate, evaluate and cite primary and secondary sources.
- Analyse how structure, voice and language position the reader.
- Explain how context and representation shape whose version is told.
- Apply ethical principles of consent, privacy and fairness.
- Plan, draft and revise a short profile supported by accurate evidence.
- Present a short oral account, interview reflection or seminar contribution.
The five-week shape
| Week | Focus |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | Forms and truth. Compare biography, autobiography, memoir and profile; distinguish factual, emotional and interpretive truth; begin a source log. |
| Week 2 | Research and structure. Evaluate primary and secondary sources; verify a disputed claim; compare chronological, thematic and braided structures; outline a profile. |
| Week 3 | Voice, character and context. Analyse tone and perspective; map a subject's wants, fears and contradictions; examine context and representation. |
| Week 4 | Ethics and interviews. Apply consent, privacy and fairness principles; plan a respectful interview; close-read a life-writing passage. |
| Week 5 | Draft and refine. Draft a profile; give and use specific feedback; revise for accuracy, voice and structure; reflect on the choices made. |
Public resources
Outcomes and Skills
What students learn, how the skills connect, and what a strong profile looks like.
Open resource →Forms of Life Writing
Biography, autobiography, memoir, profile, oral history, obituary and life writing across media.
Open resource →Truth, Memory and Evidence
Factual, emotional and interpretive truth, the reconstructive nature of memory, and how to verify a life story.
Open resource →Research and Sources
Find, evaluate and record primary and secondary sources, follow a lead and handle gaps honestly.
Open resource →Structure and Chronology
Choose a shape for a life: chronology, themes, braids, turning points and the logic of beginnings and endings.
Open resource →Voice and Perspective
How the biographer stands in relation to the subject, and how tone, distance and point of view shape judgement.
Open resource →Character and Contradiction
Build a person from evidence, not a monument: wants, fears, habits, contradictions and change.
Open resource →Context and Representation
How time, place, culture and power shape a life, and whose version of that life gets told.
Open resource →Ethics and Consent
Privacy, consent, fairness, right of reply and the power relations involved in telling someone else’s life.
Open resource →Interviews and Oral History
Plan, conduct and preserve a respectful interview, and understand how memory is co-constructed.
Open resource →Close Reading Life Writing
Analyse voice, selection, syntax and detail, then build an interpretation from a short passage.
Open resource →Writing a Profile
Find an angle, write a lede, shape scenes and summary, and revise a short profile with evidence.
Open resource →Teacher Notes
Pacing, differentiation, sensitive content, interview protocols and practical setup for the five-week unit.
Open resource →Sources and Provenance
What this packet is built from, what is referenced rather than reproduced, and what it deliberately leaves out.
Open resource →Planning and support
Read the teacher notes for text selection, pacing, sensitive content and interview protocols. Differentiation is built into the teacher notes rather than published as a separate student page. The sources and provenance page records what is public, what is linked rather than copied, and what the packet deliberately leaves out.
No assessment instrument. This packet does not publish confidential class briefs, scores, bands, weights, task numbers, due dates or test papers. It is a teaching and formative-feedback resource. Teachers keep their own school instruments offline.
Last reviewed: October 2026. Counts on this page match the public HTML pages in this folder.