The Fifth Grade Biography Project
- Meher School Community
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Preparing Soon-to-Be Graduates for Middle School and Beyond
Every Meher School graduate has special memories of their days at our school. For some it’s a group of friends or a teacher or a class, or maybe just happy hours spent in aftercare. But one memory they all share is the fifth grade biography project. Spanning weeks of in-class and at-home work, it’s the most challenging project they’ll do while at the school.
Each student choses someone they consider inspiring and writes a detailed report on that person. The subjects, says teacher Terry Johnson, “are as wide ranging as the children’s interests.” They include historic and contemporary figures in science, history, government, the arts, entertainment, and sports.
The project introduces them to, and reinforces, skills they’ll need in middle school and beyond:
Developing study, research, and organizational skills
Comprehending and paraphrasing material from various sources
Incorporating art, poetry, and other forms of creativity into a project
Pacing a long-term project and meeting set deadlines
The process of producing the report involves seven steps: researching their subject, using four or more sources of information; taking notes; outlining each chapter; writing a first draft; proofreading what they’ve written; editing their work; and producing a final draft.
At the outset of the project, Terry invites parents to a meeting at which she explains the ways they can support their child as they work through the various phases of the work. They help the child choose their subject, take them to the library to find biographical materials, and help them find appropriate movies, documentaries, and YouTube videos on their subject.
In addition to a detailed summary of their subject’s life and contributions to humanity, it includes quotations from the person, with the student’s interpretation; a made-up dialog between the person and someone else; a bibliography; a table of contents, and a cover. To incorporate the arts, it includes a poem and an illustration by the student about their subject. The conclusion summarizes what the student hopes readers will remember about the person.
The students choose their subjects at the end of February, consulting with Terry and their parents about their decision. To help them stay on track, there’s a 15-item checklist of progress toward completing their outline, rough draft, and final draft. The report must be handwritten or typed entirely by the student.
To help them navigate the process, Terry gives the students a nine-page “Requirement Sheet,” an overview of the project that explains every step and component in detail. Each report has 16 parts and runs about 20 pages.
This year’s fifth grade—the 40th class to do the project—began work on their biographies in February. They work in class for at least half an hour four days a week, where the three teachers are available to support them. The rest of the work they do at home.
As if the report wasn’t keeping the fifth graders busy enough, in mid-March they began two-hour-a-day rehearsals for their end-of-year play. (We’ll have more about that in a future issue.)
Terry grades the reports—no small feat in itself—based on their content and presentation, any optional extra-credit chapters, and how successfully the student was at meeting due dates over the course of the project.
In her conclusion, one girl wrote of her subject, “Muppeteer” Jim Henson, “‘Keep believing, keep pretending,’ he used to say. ‘But maybe we don’t have to pretend. Maybe in 50 years the new Meher School fifth graders will be doing a report on us.’”
Graduates have told us that the fifth grade biography project was more comprehensive and challenging than any assignment they completed in middle school. Observes elementary Co-Principal Ivy Summers, “In my experience, any Meher School graduate can tell you who they studied for their fifth grade biography project, whether they graduated three years ago or 30.”
The reports are due tomorrow.