105 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. during theyears that Leslie Stephen contributed to the OED, he started his owncrowdsourced project, the Dictionary of National Biography (DNB). Just asMurray’s Dictionary traced the lives of thousands of words, Stephen’sdictionary traced the lives of thousands of people who made a notable impacton British history. Stephen invited 653 people to write 29,120 articles. Sixty-three volumes comprising 29,108 pages were published, the first volume in1885 and the last in 1900. The DNB is still going today, under the aegis ofOxford University Press, and it now covers the lives of 55,000 people.

      Presumably this dictionary also used a card index for collection? (check...)

    1. Sirat Rasul Allah (The Life of God's Messenger) is a biography of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Ibn Hisham published a further revised version of the book, under the same title Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah.
  2. Sep 2023
    1. 「有人曾说,每个男人的一生都在努力满足父亲的期望,或者弥补父亲犯下的错误,」贝拉克·奥巴马在回忆录中这样写道,「我想这或许可以解释我的软肋来自何处。」
    2. 埃隆·马斯克的童年在南非度过,他经受过切肤之痛,也学会了如何在痛苦中生存。  12 岁那年,他乘大巴来到一个名叫「野外学校」(veldskool)的野外生存营地。在他的记忆里,「它就像《蝇王》故事的现实版本」。每个孩子只能分到一点点食物和水,这里允许他们为了争夺生存物资大打出手,甚至鼓励他们这么做。他的弟弟金博尔说:「欺凌在这里被视作一种美德。」大孩子们很快就开始暴揍小家伙的脸,然后夺走他们的东西。埃隆身材矮小,木讷呆滞,结果被人打了两次。最后他瘦了 10 磅。  临近开营第一周周末的时候,男孩们被分成两组,辅导员要求他们相互攻击。马斯克回忆说:「这太疯狂了。你只要经历过,一辈子都忘不了。」每隔几年,就会有一个孩子死在这里。辅导员会把这种案例当成反面教材,他们会说:「别像去年挂掉的那个笨蛋一样蠢,也别当个懦弱的小傻瓜。」  埃隆第二次去野外学校时,即将年满 16 岁。他身高激增到 6 英尺 3,体格也强壮了不少,身材像一头熊,还学了一点儿柔道。这一次,野外学校不再是他的噩梦。埃隆说:「那时我开始意识到,如果有人欺负我,我可以一拳打中他们的鼻子,这样他们就再也不敢欺负我了。他们可能会把我打得屁滚尿流,但如果我狠狠地打中他们的鼻子,他们以后就不敢再来找我了。」
  3. Jun 2023
  4. Feb 2023
  5. Oct 2022
  6. Jan 2022
  7. Dec 2021
    1. A funeral

      The tone of the poem begins to shift in this stanza, getting increasingly dark from here on out. During the time Tennyson spent writing this collection (1932), he was depressed and dealing with immense loss. The following article details this in the "introduction" portion (page 4).

      Article

  8. Sep 2021
    1. The Canonization

      The Canonization is reckoned to be written by John Donne after the secret marriage with Ann Donne (in 1601, when Ann was 17 and John was 29), since it defiantly celebrated his marriage.

      Source: Hadfield. Andrew. John Donne : In the Shadow of Religion, 2021, p21

  9. Jun 2021
  10. May 2021
    1. Turing was an exceptional mathematician with a peculiar and fascinating personality and yet he remains largely unknown. In fact, he might be considered the father of the von Neumann architecture computer and the pioneer of Artificial Intelligence. And all thanks to his machines; both those that Church called “Turing machines” and the a-, c-, o-, unorganized- and p-machines, which gave rise to evolutionary computations and genetic programming as well as connectionism and learning. This paper looks at all of these and at why he is such an often overlooked and misunderstood figure.
  11. Oct 2020
    1. son of Memory

      One must wonder in what sense he meant this given the ars memorativa of the age. Compare this to the ancient interpretation of a "biography" in the first century with that of a 19th century biography as indicated in Bart Ehrman's opening chapters of A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.

  12. May 2020
  13. Sep 2019
    1. The Hispanic ChallengeThe persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves --from Los Angeles to Miami --and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream. The United States ignores this challenge at its peril. By Samuel P. Huntington| October 28, 2009, 8:39 PM

      WHO IS SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON ? -BORN Apring 18th 1927 making him he died in 2008 he is a New York native went to Yale and then served the military He is a a political scientist

      • also a Presdiential advisor to former presidents Lyndon Jhonson and Jimmy Carter
  14. Mar 2019
  15. Apr 2018
    1. Shewrote.Shewrote.Shewrote

      We see this many times in Orlando, where time passes by very quickly. Here a whole year passes by while Orlando is writing and the narrator says that with Orlando only writing and thinking about love there is not much to write about in this year of her life. The narrator leaves it to our imagination and just tells us that Orlando writes and thinks about love and that there is not much to say besides that. When there isn't any evidence, any way to write exactly what happened and when the person the biography is being written about is doing unimportant things, time passes by very fast. This also shows us how there is a varying level of fact versus fiction in biographies because we can not be absolutely sure what is happening at every moment of the persons life.

    2. Ifonlysubjects,wemightcomplain(forourpatienceiswearingthin),hadmoreconsiderationfortheirbiographers!

      Throughout the book the narrator has inserted themself commenting on what is happening. The narrator has often encouraged the use of imagination for telling the story, whether it be through the use of their own or asking the reader to use their own. In this part of the story the narrator is looking for something to do while Orlando is writing, complaining that the subject should be considerate of the biographer, rather than using imagination which they have relied on before. Instead of a change of tone of the narrator, I think this continues the theme of this being a parody. I think the narrator is mocking biographers who focus on the actions of their subject and not their thoughts. What makes this interesting is the fact that imagination is not used as it is the other times when the narrator pokes fun at biographies. This shows that the narrator thinks that without adding to the story, that it is rather boring and can result in situations where there is nothing to write. This can result in the biographer looking for anything to write about, which is what happened when the narrator stopped conjuring up what they thought the subject might be thinking about.

  16. Dec 2017
    1. There is a reason we know Malala's story but not that of Noor Aziz, eight years old when killed by a drone strike in Pakistan; Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser, dead at seven from a drone strike in Yemen; or Abeer Qassim Hamza al Janabi, the 14-year-old girl raped and set on fire by US troops in Mahmudiyah, Iraq. "I wasn't thinking these people were humans," one of the soldiers involved, Steven Green, said of his Iraqi victims.
  17. Nov 2016
    1. the Virgin looked over Saint James and Vicente Ferrer

      The Virgin de Pilar stands above the altar in the third chapel on the right, and it seems that this description by Wilde is substantially accurate, although it is not clear whether he recalled it from memory or from some written reference, either of his own or his friends’ account of their time in Rome.

    1. Salomé

      Wilde wrote his one-act play Salomé much later, in 1891. The subject began to fascinate Wilde, it seems, after Pater introduced him to Hérodias (one of Flaubert’s Trois Contes) in late 1877. The mention here thus seems to be, by and large, following Hawthorne’s own description of Donatello considering some of Miriam’s sketches, which Wilde had omitted from his Chapter 4 but perhaps did not wish to abandon entirely. It is worth noting that Hawthorne does not name Salomé, but refers to her through her father and the story. Wilde’s reframing of the description shows a sensitivity to the tale that was later to show in his play.

    1. Tyrrell

      The person named in Hawthorne’s novel is Powers. This may be a tongue-in-cheek reference to Robert Yelverton Tyrrell, who when Wilde was at Trinity had just been made professor of Latin there, at the age of 25. It is as though Wilde imagines for Miriam a slightly different tour of classical Italy and Greece than the one that Mahaffy was leading him on.

    1. Yours Lovingly,

      Again, we see the same sign-off that caused Walter Pater so much trouble. It is somewhat surprising that Wilde seems to have made no response to this letter. There is a possibility that it was written but never sent, as the only record of it is in Tafani’s own collection of correspondence, separated from the correspondence with Wilde of earlier in 1877.

    2. when you come up again next month.

      It appears that this meeting never took place. Tafani’s departure from Oxford took place at the very beginning of October, and it is unclear from any of the documents at Jesus College, or in Tafani’s archive, quite why he did so. It certainly left the College rather understaffed for the first term.

    3. 1st September, 1877

      It is unclear whether a bundle of letters has simply been lost, or whether the large gap between Tafani’s previous letter and this is simply a product of an inconstancy between the two correspondents. It is clear that there must have been at least one letter from Wilde containing the manuscript pages of his novel, in order for Tafani to have read and annotated them. In any events, Tafani makes no reproaches of Wilde for not having responded to him, but the former seemed to forgive a great deal, and it is also possible that they saw each other briefly, or communicated through friends, during the intervening weeks.

    1. a copy of your Grosvenor review in the magazine

      Wilde sent such a copy of the Dublin University Magazine to Pater. It is not clear whether he ever sent a copy to Tafani, as apparently promised. He was, in other regards, an ardent promoter of the magazine, however, by way of self-promotion. A few weeks earlier, around 20 June, he had written to Keningale Cook to suggest some ways in which the magazine could be promoted to booksellers, and so boost its circulation.

    2. a dear friend of mine

      It is unclear whom Tafani was travelling with, and whether they travelled together from London or Tafani met his friend in Paris.

    1. ad poetry because of an author’s foible is one thing, but because of an editor’s?!

      Wilde wrote to the Rev. Matthew Russell SJ, editor of the Irish Monthly, on either this day or the day before about these proofs.

    2. Heu Miserande Puer

      This poem about Keats was accompanied by a short article regarding Keats’ grave, which Wilde drew to the attention of several literary figures, including WM Rossetti, with a view to improving the memorials to Keats by way of a statue. That scheme was not encouraged by Wilde’s correspondents.

    3. my relative

      Wilde does not own Henry as a half-brother, although he was. In a letter to Harding in mid-June, he described Henry as “a cousin of ours to whom we were all very much attached”.

    4. leaving a reversionary interest to Willie

      Wilde was later to persuade his brother Willie to give up this reversionary interest for the sum of £10.

    5. Henry

      Dr Henry Wilson, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, and Wilde’s half-brother, passed away on 13 June 1877. He was aged 39.

    1. a more harmonious whole

      Tafani does not mention explicitly any criticism of or difficulties with his translations, but the shift in tone here from his previous letter suggests that he has lost confidence in the work he had just completed.

    1. You know only too well that he remains sore from last year’s trip!

      Mahaffy was censured by his colleagues at Trinity for a similar offence—extending a trip to Greece into term-time—in 1876.

    1. my second volume

      Based on length, at 48,000 words or so, it is not clear whether Wilde’s novel strictly required a second volume. Hawthorne’s second volume exceeds by 30,000 Wilde’s entire piece. Still, the mimicry of Hawthorne’s structure seems to have provided Wilde with an imaginative construct in which to work, and the second volume deviates far more significantly from Hawthorne’s original than the first.

    2. or better,

      In ‘London Models’, Wilde argued that “Italian models are the best” because of “the natural grace of their attitudes”.

    3. a purely modern invention

      This appraisal of the status of artistic models Wilde expounds in his essay on ‘London Models’, published in the English Illustrated Magazine in January 1889.

    1. ‘at homes’

      Hunter Blair records Wilde’s tendency to host gatherings in his rooms after coffee was served in the Common Room each Sunday.

    2. He was at Eton, but retains his native accents

      It has not proven possible to identify this “prospective new Demy”. It is possible that he never took up or was offered a Demyship, although the ranks of Eton are sufficiently small that it might prove possible to theorise one or two candidates for this minor character in Wilde and Tafani’s correspondence.

    3. {If they must be read all together, I worry for their individual merit!}

      Wilde’s catty remark here unsurprisingly does not make it into the letter he sends by way of reply.

    4. They are better read together.

      A collection of Petrarchan sonnets translated into English by Tafani was published in Italy in 1879. It is likely these poems to which Tafani here refers. It seems that Tafani shared Wilde’s own interest in dictating the manner in which his works were presented.

    1. might more easily combine personality with perfection

      Wilde had read Swinburne’s Essays and Studies when it was first published in 1875, and the combination of personality and perfection was one that stuck with him throughout his life and career.

    2. I have no intention of retelling old Hawthorne’s tale

      Wilde’s reputation for plagiarism, or at least highly creative borrowing, was in its early phases during this period, but there is a point of amusement

    3. Old Cricket

      The reference is to Wilde’s much-disliked tutor, Allen. It is not clear whether the nickname was one in common use, or is something that Wilde conjured on the spot in this letter. It does not appear elsewhere. Alternatively, it may be that I have mistook Wilde’s notoriously sprawling hand in this instance, as context provides no assistance.

    1. AMT

      Whether this is teasing or sympathetic is difficult to determine. Wilde’s reply reads nothing into it.

    2. You will not fail to write it up, will you?

      Indeed, Wilde did not, and the review was published in the Dublin University Magazine in due course. It is probable that Wilde had already had the idea himself before receiving this note of encouragement.

    3. I think it rather a pity to spend so much <of yourself> on a tale that cannot much improve in the retelling

      It is difficult to know quite what Tafani would have had Wilde work upon instead (aside from academics), but he was consistently against Wilde’s project. As an Italian, it may have been Rome which he sought to defend from caricature, although Wilde’s retelling is rather more sensitive to that Empire and culture than Hawthorne’s.

    1. OFOFWW

      This flourishing of initials, from Wilde’s full name, suggests his pride was piqued by the rustication, and although Wilde does not seem to blame “dear” Tafani, it may be that he wishes to reassert himself in this letter back up to Oxford. The deferral of any further correspondence by not giving Frank Miles’ address (which Tafani might have sought out himself, had he really wished), suggests Wilde felt some need for a cooling off period.

    2. an intended poet

      It seemed that Tafani’s enthusiasm for Wilde as a poet, which Wilde at this point shared, was not universal. Later in the year, when Wilde returned to Oxford, Pater noted that prose was the more difficult of the two arts to master and questioned why Wilde wrote so much poetry. It seems that the young Wilde could not win, but charmed everyone nonetheless.

    3. or else the story would be all conversation

      There is an increase in the dialogic quality of the novel as Wilde retells it. This remark echoes one by him to Beatrice Allhusen that Dorian Gray was “like [his] own life—all conversation and no action” because he “can’t describe action”. Interestingly, however, many of the visualisations of Hawthorne’s novels and their treatment of the Christian names of the characters indicate a dialogic focus, with the names most often associated with speech tags or punctuation relating to direct address.

    4. rather than invite us to contemplate things tht [sic] are mere ephemera in the night’s sky

      Wilde’s review of the opening for the Dublin University Magazine includes a curt response to Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket: “it is worth looking at for about as long as one looks at a real rocket, that is, for somewhat less than a quarter of a minute”.

    5. frieze

      Whistler was commissioned to decorate the coved ceiling of the Grosvenor’s West Gallery, showing the moon in all its phases in silver, against a deep blue background.

    6. I have written as persuasively as was possibly in the circumstances

      Wilde’s eloquent letter was partly successful, and his fine was reduced by the Magdalen officers on 4 May, although this did not quite satisfy Wilde’s sense of justice.

    1. Yours lovingly,

      It was precisely this sign-off that proved a stumbling block for Walter Pater in his correspondence with William Money Hardinge.

    2. your punishment has already been meted out

      It is not clear whether Wilde had heard news from Tafani or others about the 26 April decision by the Magdalen officers to rusticate him. Tafani assumes that the information was known to Wilde.

    3. this may not reach you for some time

      Indeed, this letter did not reach Wilde until much later, having been returned from Paris and sent on to him from Oxford, as he had been rusticated. It can be expected that Arturo and Wilde spoke during the meantime.

    4. 29th April, 1877

      This and Tafani’s preceding letter are brief and directed towards encouraging Wilde to return sensibly to his studies. Tafani was clearly waiting to respond personally to some of the points raised in Wilde’s letters, but Wilde continues to write expansively regardless.

    1. I know that I have missed a few weeks or so of term now, but I am sure you will agree that it has been to the eternal benefit of my soul and of my art.

      Wilde may have begun feeling nervous about the consequences of his long delay in returning to Oxford, which was the subject of two letters from Tafani during a period in which their correspondence seemed to cross over.

    2. You know yourself of what I speak.

      It is unclear whether Tafani had, at this point, had the same experience of an audience with the Pope as Blair and now Wilde. Tafani had left Rome as a young child, and he did not return to Italy until later in 1877.

    3. 27 April, 1877

      It seems unlikely that Wilde had received Tafani’s letter of 26 April in order to respond, so this seems to be a second writing, perhaps because Wilde had been on the move and felt that his letters might not reach him promptly, or perhaps because of the extent to which he was moved by his audience with the Pope.

    1. bring back your charming manuscripts and self with haste

      Tafani’s motivations are here unclear. Although a concern for Wilde’s academic progress is certainly plausible, Wilde’s subsequent double first suggests that the risk to his academic career was slight. The preceding paragraph speaks of Tafani’s jealousy at Wilde’s visit to Rome, and perhaps to the amusement that, implicitly, Wilde and his young friends were enjoying. The stricter tones of “My dear student” and this closing paragraph run counter to the unusual sign-off, “Tafi”, used but rarely elsewhere amongst Tafani’s correspondence, either by the man himself or by his correspondents.

    2. consequences

      It was on this same day, 26 April, that the Magdalen officers lost patience with Wilde’s absence and resolved that he be rusticated and required to complete a portion of work to a required standard before the beginning of the October term, or else risk his Demyship.

    1. I do not think this very ugly thing ought to be allowed to remain

      Wilde made a similar remark in a letter to his mother, evidently pleased with his discriminating insight.

    2. bas of Keat’s head

      Ellmann’s biography of Wilde places the visit to Keats’ grave at the Protestant cemetery as occurring on the same day as Wilde’s audience with the Pope. The description of these two events in separate letters to Tafani suggests otherwise, however. Wilde may have visited the bust twice, or the two events become conflated in the retelling of them by others.

    3. our

      Wilde’s letters but rarely refer to the first-person plural, although he was of course travelling with several companions. That he does so here is suggestive that the visits to sites associated with British literary lions may have been at the prompting of one of his companions.

    4. dear Hunter

      Wilde’s friend, Hunter Blair, converted to Catholicism in 1875.

    5. G.G. Ramsay

      A professor of humanities from Glasgow, Ramsay met Wilde, Ward and Blair in Rome and acted as guide around the city.

    6. that

      This visit to San Lazzaro degli Armeni formed part of Wilde’s 1875 trip to Italy, also with Mahaffy, as well as with his friend William Goulding.

  18. Sep 2016
  19. May 2016
    1. A bibliography of sources used when writing the fictionalized bio graphies and diaries is often provided. Children could check the sources to determine if the author has included real letters, dialogue, or opinions

      Real letters and dialogue make the writing become real and it may help the readers to connect to the situation in which they are reading about. By showing these inside of fictionalized biographies, it helps students see the difference in the texts.

    2. Accuracy and authenticity are of prime concern even if the presenta tion is fictiona

      It is necessary that all students can tell the differences between fiction and the actual time in history when something happened. This is something that some students may struggle with, but it is important as becoming a teacher to make sure you don't leave students behind.

    3. Students can judge whether the author provided a true-to-life char acterization of a historical individua

      This is true and it is a good way for students to truly see the difference between real life and not. When students can read historical information that is real, some of the time it is hard to believe just because of how bad things really were.

    4. As children grow, reading outside structured reading classes becomes increasingly importan

      Reading outside the classroom is very important in child development. It helps children develop even when they are not inside the classroom. It helps students increase their reading skills as well as their vocab knowledge.

    5. ithin the fictional stories, authors have taken liberties in inventing dialogue, emotions, and judgments of individuals to create a more intimate sounding account of some one's life.

      These "liberties" allow history to really come alive! It is necessary for authors to make engaging texts to lure readers into different subjects. Using dialogue and emotions can allow readers to feel how such person was feeling hundreds of years ago with just the scan of a page!

    6. the story of greed and corrup tion underlying The High Voyage should be noted, for it marked one more step along the road of brutal conquest that destroyed so many native American Peoples and cultures, a tragic loss for us all.

      This is a really interesting point and a great discussion question. The idea of author bias is visible in all things from conversation to writing! Reading literature with a keen eye for such bias is necessary in developing successful readers.

    7. A limited perspective is pre sented through first person narration because this narrator cannot be all places at once

      Talking about the various perspectives of biographies leads to such a diverse discussion. Looking the the various perspectives such as the limited perspective could show that within just one genre their are many ways of approaching content.

    8. "although his journal is my creation, Joseph Mason himself was a real boy. I first learned about him from the legend under an Audubon painting at the New York Historical Society.

      These biographies are really fascinating to teach children. Without the fictional accounts of journals and other creative depictions these lives and stories would be completely lost. Reiterating to the class that the style and words are created, but the people and situations were real they can begin to grasp what the "biography" is about and who it represents.

    9. first person narrative may be more intimate than third person, but care should be taken in explaining to students that such a portrayal is fictional

      Using diverse historical literature is so important to learning not only about people that have lived in the past but also in exploring the various genres that literature offers, I agree that teachers should make sure that their studetns know the difference between portraals and first hand accounts as that can get confusing when it all sounds "real".

    10. Students can judge whether the author provided a true-to-life char acterization of a historical individual or whether hero worship entered the picture

      This is a great opportunity for students to learn how to discern what is real-life versus ornamentation is. Learning how to know the difference is crucial in literature and provides students with a critical eye.

    11. In many instances the narrator is a child, and children do not always have access to adult conversations nor do they always realize the seriousness of the situa tions surrounding them; a child's point of view often contains an element of naivete as we

      I never realized the accuracy of this statement until I read it... Interesting! After reading this, I definitely agree. On a similar point, I feel that children better connect with and understand information when it is relatable. With a child narrator, the story now becomes extremely relatable!

    12. Accuracy and authenticity are of prime concern even if the presenta tion is fictional

      Yes, this is extraordinarily important. Even if the piece is fictional, students must be able to make concrete connections between the written material and the period in history. This will not only confirm their understanding of the time period or historical figure/event, but will also reinforce this knowledge.

    13. in first person narration, bring history to life on a more personal level than nonfiction material such as textbooks.

      I agree with this statement entirely! Journal entries by historical figures help young students better conceptualize the events and way of life that occurred in that time period. As for biographies, reading material that personally comes from the historical figure can seem like an intimate conversation between author and reader. Readers are thus able to make new connections to the material and may learn it better.

    14. For instance, in social stud ies, students may be able to pick out facts (names, places, events), but they often overlook the deeper aspects of such information

      This statement is so relevant, even with students in college. Critical thinking skills should be addressed in literacy as early as Kindergarten and first grade. It is important to help our readers become the best readers they can possibly be. Educators should encourage young students to ask questions while reading and to reread texts. By doing this, students will be able to develop analytical skills that help them better understand the text and move on to more complex readings.

  20. Apr 2016
    1. . Chil dren can distinguish fact from opin ion, determine whether an author has any bias, and draw inferences about historical climates, settings, or events

      This is a good way to test students knowledge of historical events they've learned about in class. For example, they could read a fictionalized biography and then connect it to a certain historical event or setting that they have previously learned about from their nonfiction textbooks.

    2. First person narrative accounts create an air of "being there" with an individual.

      These types of narrative accounts could be very beneficial to students in getting them to really see how some people might have felt during certain historical moments. It gives them a real perspective on history.

    3. ithin the fictional stories, authors have taken liberties in inventing dialogue, emotions, and judgments of individuals to create a more intimate sounding account of some one's life. Readers should understand that such stories are not meant to replace factual material but are aimed at sparking interest in what is real

      I think this is such a great way to teach biography! Fictional stories that may have been inspired by actual historical events is a great way to get students engaged in learning about history. Sometimes the content of the nonfiction textbooks might get a little dull to students, even though they are still very important for students to read also.

    4. s children grow, reading outside structured reading classes becomes increasingly importa

      I really agree with this! If students are not introduced to reading independently, it will be very hard for them to be exposed different genres and types of books and writing there are out there. If students are sheltered in structured reading classes, they will never be able to discover what they really enjoy reading.

    5. Students should also be cautioned that the person telling the story is acting as an observer and an interpreter of emotions and events

      Students must realize that the person telling the story is not the same person the events happened to. The author trying their best to emulate the emotion the person was feeling during what was happening.

    6. Readers should understand that such stories are not meant to replace factual material but are aimed at sparking interest in what is real

      Great point that these stories are not to meant to make up things about someones life, but rather to say what happened in a more interesting way.

    7. in first person narration, bring history to life on a more personal level than nonfiction material such as textbooks

      I think that this is especially more important for kids at younger ages. It will keep them more engaged and wanting to read pieces like fictionalized biographies.