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Famous Biographies Videos 22 videos

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ELA 4: Famous Biographies 30 Views


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Description:

We're still waiting for our biography to come out. We're sure  someone  out there is working on it. We should be famous any day now. Just you watch. 

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:05

[Dino and Coop singing]

00:13

There are a whole lot of biographies out there. [Girl walking to the library]

00:16

Seriously.

00:17

Just head to your local library and check out the biography section.

00:20

It’s a sea of books! [Guy water skiing on a pile of books]

00:21

…Just don't try and waterski in it, …sounds painful. [The guy is hit by a wave of books and falls over]

00:24

Anyway, these biographies can be about important and interesting people from history like Maya [Biographies on a shelf]

00:28

Angelou, Winston Churchill, Helen Keller and Abraham Lincoln.

00:32

And yes, you can even find biographies about people who aren't quite as important. [Kim Kardashian biography]

00:35

Unless you really care about Kim Kardashian's selfie technique.

00:37

Then by all means, check it out. [Girl taking a selfie with a selfie stick]

00:39

But while many biographies are written about people that were already famous, sometimes

00:43

biographies can also make people famous by bringing attention and acclaim to people who [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

00:47

might otherwise have been forgotten by history.

00:49

Pretty cool, right?

00:51

Biographies can be especially useful when written about people who probably weren't

00:54

given a whole lot of credit back when they were alive.

00:56

Which is good news for basically any woman or racial minority living over fifty years ago. [Woman taking picture with selfie stick while other woman looks unimpressed]

01:01

But finding enough information to fill a book on someone who history kind of forgot?

01:05

It's not super easy.

01:06

It'd be like trying to write a biography about your great great great great grandmother. [Guy typing on the computer about his grandmother]

01:11

She was probably a cool lady…after all, she is related to you…but do you even know her name?

01:15

Yup.

01:16

Like we said, it's not a super easy task.

01:18

Researchers and historians spend countless hours sifting through primary sources that [Girl sat in a huge pile of books reading]

01:22

aren't always accessible to the public, all in an effort to bring light to those forgotten

01:26

by history.

01:27

Once done, these biographers produce what is called a “secondary source” in the [Dino pointing at a blackboard]

01:31

form of a biography, which is usually more to the point and accessible for the general

01:35

public than a primary source.

01:37

Usually.

01:37

You never know when a biography might have fangs.

01:40

Or rabies. [Rabid dog and man looks scared]

01:41

Anyway.

01:42

Think of the many primary sources as ingredients like flour, eggs and cocoa powder.

01:46

You probably don’t wanna eat all that stuff on its own.

01:48

Unless you want to use your mouth as a mixing bowl. [Guy with ingredients in his mouth]

01:50

But we don't recommend that.

01:52

A biographer can turn all of those ingredients into into an easy-to-consume chocolate cake.

01:56

Unlike the old and complex primary sources, secondary sources are often written in interesting, [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

02:02

creative, and easy-to-understand ways in order to appeal to everyone, whether or not they're

02:05

familiar with the topic.

02:07

So go check out the cake – uh, I mean biography – section in the library. [Girl walking in the library]

02:11

And while you're doing that, we're going to try and start a cake section in our local library. [People holding up slices of cake in the library]

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