Autobiographical Writing

Question 1

What is autobiographical writing?

Answer 1

Autobiographical writing is when an author writes about his or her own experiences.

Question 2

Give 3 examples of autobiographical writing?

Answer 2

a diary entry
a memoir
an autobiography

Question 3

What is the difference between an autobiography and a memoir?

Answer 3

An autobiography tends to recount the writer’s life in chronological (time) order e.g childhood, adolescence, early adulthood etc.

A memoir tends to recount a writer’s memories of a particular period or particular events or occasions in his or her life.

Question 4

What are the features or autobiographical writing?

Answer 4

Use of the 1st person, “I” “we”
Events described in chronological (time) order
recounting events in the past tense
thoughts and reflections
feelings
revelations (revealing something secret or not well-known)

Question 5

What is the difference between an autobiography and a biography?

Answer 5

An autobiography is when a writer writes about his or her own life.

A biography is when an author writes about someone else’s life.

Question 6

What are the features of a good diary entry?

Answer 6

a date
a greeting, e.g. "Dear Diary,"
use of the 1st person "I" "we"
events recounted in the past tense
informal/chatty language
private thoughts and feeling
a confidential tone
reflections (what did you learn, what would you do differently...)
signing off e.g. "Bye for now, Mary"

Question 7

How do you create a confidential or confessional tone in a diary entry?

Answer 7

You can create a confidential tone by including private thoughts, reflections and feelings that you might not share with most others.

Question 8

What is a reflection?

Answer 8

A reflection is looking back on an experience or memory and thinking about what you learned, what you would do differently or something you know now that you did not know at the time it took place.

Question 9

True or False: You should use only the past tense in autobiographical writing.

Answer 9

False: You use the past tense to recount past events, but you may use other tenses too. You could use the future tense to describe your hopes, dreams and ambitions for the future, for example.

Question 10

What does it mean when a text is described as semi-autobiographical?

Answer 10

Any text (poem, film, play, short story etc. ) may be described as semi-autobiographical. This means the writer has created the text by combining experiences from his or her own life with fictional (made-up) elements.