MODULE 2

“Autobiography Making”

Overview of the Module:

This module deals with introducing learners in writing their own

autobiography and expose to another genre of writing. In this lesson, the life of
Michael Smith in his autobiography entitled “A Man with Pride and Honor”, will be
used as an authentic material for the analysis. This autobiography will be the
foundation of the learners to understand the importance of making life’s personal
background that could somehow shape their firm thinking about what life really is.
This lesson will certainly develop learners’ writing skills and can familiarize the
proper usage of pronouns.

Lesson: AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Terminal Objective: Students will be able to make an autobiography in a highly

subjective practice of self-representation.

Enabling Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the learners are expected to:
1. identify the process in making an autobiography;
2. examine the structure of an autobiography;
3. identify the pronoun used;
4. list down 10 pronouns used in the text;
5. label each pronoun used;
6. participate in a pair and group discussion;
7. differentiate the life narrative, biography, and novel, from
autobiography; and
 8. compose an autobiography, and present it to the whole class.

Reading Selection: A Man with Pride and Honor, written by Michael Smith

CONTEXT EXPLORATION
(Context exploration is the first stage of Lin’s curriculum cycle. It includes
activities like warm up and activation of learners’ schemata.)

Activity 1: The Learners will be going to make a semantic mapping about the
word “AUTOBIOGRAPHY”. And they will be grouped into 5. After that, they will
choose their representative to report their work in the whole class.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

TEXT EXPLORATION
(Text exploration is the second stage of the curriculum cycle. Involves activities
that allow students to examine a specific genre focusing on its organizational and
linguistic aspects. Its goal is to draw students’ attention to the features inherent to
the model text.)

Activity 2: Silent Reading

The learners will read silently the autobiography entitled “A Man with Pride and
Honor” by Michael Smith. After reading, they will proceed to Activity 3, to answer
the following questions.
 A Man with Pride and Honor
My name is Michael Smith and I was born on the 30th of August,
1967 in Long Beach, California. My parents were Eddie Smith and Joan Smith.
Both of my parents are deceased. My mom died at the age of 57 in 1994 from
lung cancer which was the result of smoking her whole lifetime. My father died
at the age of 69 in 2006 from a massive heart attack, which was also the likely
result from a lifetime of smoking. Fortunately I have been smart enough to
avoid that bad habit.
My early childhood was a typical middle class environment circa
the 1960's. My dad worked for Simpson Buick as a parts salesman and my
mom was a stay at home mother. I had a happy, normal childhood as an only
child, leaving me somewhat spoiled. My mom and dad divorced when I was
eight years old and both remarried within a year or so of the divorce. My dad
remained married to my stepmom Bev until his death. My mom would marry
two more times. My first stepdad Vince became a big part of my life and I
maintained close contact with him until his death in 2006, two days after my
real dad died. Yes, that was a very bad week, losing both of my dad’s.
Growing up with split parents was not especially difficult since
each of my parents kept me out of their divorce and they got along fine at
events where both of them were present. I lived with my mom until I was 16
and in high school. By my sophomore year in high school I had begun to hang
around with friends that got me into a lot of trouble with a number of things
including smoking pot and drinking. I was rapidly heading down a negative
path, but was fortunate enough to notice it before I had done any serious
damage. I moved in with my dad and changed high schools and friends.
With the fresh start I was able to finish high school without further
incident, graduating from Downey High School in 1985. Even with my
questionable behavior earlier in my life I had always wanted to become a
police officer, which I could not do until I was 21 years of age. So, to kill time
and stay out of trouble I joined the United States Army immediately after
turning 18. I joined the army and was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia for basic
training, advanced infantry training, and finally airborne jump school. After
becoming a paratrooper (11B1P, Airborne Infantry) I was assigned to Bravo
Company, 2/325th Airborne Infantry Regiment.
What stands out the most about my time in the army are the
extremes that you are subjected to. Some of my happiest memories and some
of my worst memories come from my time in the army. One thing that I am
sure of is that it shaped me to become the man that I am now. The army really
straightened me out from my troubled teenage years. When I came out of the
army I had put on 50 solid pounds and was old enough to attempt to become a
police officer.
Fresh out of the service I waited on tables and did some
bartending while in the long application process for law enforcement. I applied
to the Long Beach Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department,
and the California Highway Patrol. My hope and dream was to be accepted by
the Long Beach Police Department and it came true for me. I was accepted
into the Long Beach Police Academy on July 10th, 1988. My military
experience definitely made the police academy much easier for me. I was
already conditioned to withstand the extreme stress of the police academy.
The only difficulty I had in the police academy was a number of injuries
suffered during it, but I was able to continue in spite of them. I attribute this to
my time in the army as well because I had learned to "Play through the pain."
During the time that I was in the police academy I was living with my girlfriend.
Shortly after graduating from the police academy we made the mistake of
getting married. As so happens in law enforcement we ended up divorced two
years later, which was a mutual decision and really the best thing for both of
us. Fortunately, (and unlike many other police officers, both male and female)
she is my only ex-wife.
After five months I graduated from the police academy and was
assigned as a police rookie in training for the Patrol Division. My field training
period went quickly and I was able to complete field training without any
problems. It became immediately clear to me that I had made the right career
choice. The excitement of being a police officer lived up to all my expectations.
I literally enjoyed the police work so much that I looked forward to going to
work and I could not believe that I was getting paid for it. The job only got
better as I became more experienced, leading to more confidence that I could
handle the job regardless of what came along.
During my career in law enforcement I worked in patrol as an
officer, later as a field training officer, and finally as a patrol sergeant. Over the
course of my career I also worked in detectives, in the Gang Enforcement
Section, and as a detective sergeant. One of the best things about being a
police officer is that once what you are doing becomes routine or boring, you
can change what you are doing. By the time I had been a patrol officer and
field training officer for five years and beginning to burn out on it I was able to
go to detectives. This gave me a new dimension of experience and I learned a
lot during my years as a detective, particularly while I was assigned to the
Gang Enforcement Section. I did this for several years and eventually became
an acting detective sergeant in gangs.
After my time in detectives and the Gang Enforcement Section I
decided to return to the patrol division as a patrol sergeant. Of all of the
assignments I had as a police officer being a patrol sergeant was easily my
favorite. In law enforcement sergeants are the middle men in between the
patrol officers (aka "The Troops") and the lieutenants and above (aka "The
Brass"). Unlike many careers where being the middle man is a bad thing
("Being stuck in the middle"), in law enforcement I found the opposite to be
true. As a patrol sergeant you don't get stuck with the routine paper calls that
the patrol officers do, but you can still handle calls that are interesting, require
a supervisor, or are more complicated. While being a sergeant does bring
around a lot of paperwork, it is still less than the ranks above you often have to
handle.
My retirement from law enforcement came sooner than I would
have liked because of a number of injuries sustained in the line of duty. The
primary of these injuries required having my spine fused at the L5-S1. This
injury alone was enough to end my law enforcement career. I miss my time in
law enforcement nearly every day. But, I try to look at it as getting to do a
whole career of doing something that I loved. My father worked at the same
place for 30 years and hated every day of it. I got to spend a slightly shortened
career doing something I loved.
Since my retirement I have run a private investigations company
that I built from the ground up. I'm now going to school for a bachelor's degree
in psychology and will move on to a master's degree afterwards. I am planning
to go into counseling for police officers and military veterans. Both police and
military are fields that are likely to cause the need for counseling, but each of
those careers are often closed to outsiders. As a veteran of both the military
and law enforcement I believe that I have the insight to be helpful to both
groups, and share a common ground with them that may make it easier for
them to open up to me.
I will close out this autobiography with the most important thing in
my life, my family. I am married to my best friend, Amanda. We knew each
other and were just close friends for the first five or six years but we became a
couple nine years ago and have been married for eight years. Neither of us
can have children, but we have a large family of dogs and cats that are our
"kids." All of our animals are rescues, some of which we have bottle fed from
birth when the animal's mother died during birth. It makes us a happy, close
knit pack of two people, three dogs, and two cats.

Activity 3: Comprehension Check

The learners will going to answer the following questions. They will be grouped
again, but just the same group in the activity 1. Only two sentences in answering
will do in every items.
1. What do you think the title means?
2. What do you think is the writer’s purpose in sharing his life story?
3. What does first paragraph emphasizes?
4. What are the important events that provided by the second to fifth
paragraph?
5. Are the sentences used pronouns?
6. Does the story leaves values to the readers?

Activity 4: Vocabulary Check: Go back to the text again. Identify the following
words mean. This will be an individual work.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.

Activity 5: Pronoun: The students will be going to identify some pronouns used
in the text. And they will write their answer on a ½ sheet of paper. This will be
an individual work.

Activity 6: Processing Learning on Pronouns:

1. The learners will read the pronouns that they have written on their
paper.
2. They will examine the pronouns according to their usage in a sentence.
Activity 7: They will be going to find the pronouns that will be filled in this tables.
They can put as many as they can, but it should be in the appropriate column
under in the types of pronoun. This is a group task.

Indefinite Personal Reflexive Demonstrativ Possessiv Relative Intensive

pronoun pronoun pronoun e e pronoun pronoun
s s s pronouns pronouns s s

Activity 8: Enrichment activity: The learners will be going to differentiate these

three terms from autobiography in making life histories.

Life Narrative

Biography
Novel

Autobiography
JOINT CONSTRUCTION
(Joint construction is the third stage of the curriculum cycle. It includes activities
that allow language learners to work with their teacher and/ or classmates to
construct a text (which will undergo process – drafting, editing, revising) applying
what they learned from the model text, e.g. Language features/ patterns. In other
words, this phase emphasizes collaborative effort among students and teachers
in order to achieve its goal.)

Activity 9: Pair work. The learners will be going to be in pair. Each pair will be
going to assign in every types of pronouns. They will be going make a written
report about it, also they will be given enough time to gather information that
could supply to their assigned topic. After that, they will exchange their output to
the other pair for some comments, suggestions, and editing. Thus, their peer-
edited/corrected/ final written together with the drafts will be submitted to the
teacher. The learners will prepare for a graded class oral reporting about the
types of pronoun.
Activity 10: Pair Reporting. The learners that in pair will be going to report each
of the types of pronoun that they had prepared.
INDIVIDUAL APPLICATION
(Individual application is the last stage of the curriculum cycle. It requires an
individual output. It allows every student to work alone. It also gives learner an
opportunity to use his knowledge gained from his exposure to activities in the
prior stages of the cycle. This phase is preferably done after the learners have
successfully written a text that is cooperatively done. This is to ensure that
learners gained control of the text and are ready to do an individual writing task.)

Activity 11: The learners will individually compose their own autobiography.
Directions:
 You will write a 5 paragraph essay about your life.
 Each paragraph must have at least 5 sentences.
 You will write the essay in rough draft form on a yellow paper and after
that, type it.
 This is your first portfolio assignment
 You should include photo of yourself on the final copy.
Paragraph one- Introduce and describe yourself. Name, grade, age, birthdate
(year), height, hair color, personality, where you were born, where do you live,
etc.
Paragraph two- Write about your hobbies, interests, likes and dislikes.
Paragraph three- Write about your school history and work history. What
schools you have attended and when, current school info, etc. (likes and
dislikes). What service learning or work experience do you have, when, describe
the activities, etc.
Paragraph four- Write about interesting or important events in your life.
Paragraph 5- Write about your future plan.
FORMAT
 1“ Margins
 Size 12 font
 Century Gothic
 Double spacing- body of paper
 No contractions or abbreviations
 Write out numbers
 Minimum of 400 words, maximum of 600 words will do.
CRITERIA FOR SCORING
 This will be a 100 items quiz.

POINTS
Organization 25
Grammar 25
Sentence structure 20
Choice of Words 15
Spelling 15
TOTAL 100 POINTS