From MeL - Using MeL for Biography Research for Students

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From Deb Biggs at MeL -

Do you have an elementary through high school aged student at your desk looking for resources to write a biography for a school assignment or just satisfy their curiosity? Look no further than MeL, we have outstanding biographies spread among our various resources.

If you’re looking to browse in a particular area, such as a figure for Women’s History Month or a poet for National Poetry Month, BritannicaSchool is a good place to start. Research in Context for middle schoolers has over 232 individual biographies just on civil rights figures and they’re strong on ancient civilizations such as figures from India, Greece, Egypt, the Aztec Empire and Rome. If you’re looking for presidential biographies, Kids InfoBits is going to be your best bet at the elementary level and Britannica for high school students. Worldbook Kids specializes in brief biographies for the K-5 group that you can break down and explore by gender, area of specialty, country or cultural heritage and time period. Chances are that MeL has what you’re looking for when it comes to preK-12 educational needs but you may need to look in more than one place. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the pros and cons of each student resource, particularly for that frequently needed biography research material.

You can select era, national/cultural association, and then what the person is known for. Different people will appear for different age ranges depending on suitability and the article reading level can be scaled up or down. Other resources do better in specific areas. For instance, 

MeL databases are available to Michigan residents or Michigan library access only.

MeL Minutes are brought to you by the Library of Michigan.  Want more information on MeL?  Stay tuned for the next MeL Minute available on many Michigan library listservs, email us at contact@mel.org,  visit http://mel.org, or Sign up for the MeL Minute and other Library of Michigan e-mail lists via GovDelivery. We encourage you to share MeL Minutes with your colleagues and networks.

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