·         Read the information about blindness on the blog.

·         Try to find more information that you might need to develop your qutobiography.

·         Make a chart to organize the information. Why people are blind. How they manage. ( you can include more facts )

WHY PEOPLE ARE BLIND	HOW THEY MANAGE.
	RELY ON: MEMORIZE: USE CANES TO: DOGS HELP THEM TO:

You are going to write an autobiography about your life as a blind person.

You will need to include:

When and where you were born.

Why you went blind.

How you learned to manage in the world/ who helped you/ What your school life was like/who helped you to read…

Any incidents that you might have gone through.

What is your life like now.   Who you live with. How you manage.

Don’t forget to write in the past tense when you do your recount of past events. You can also used the structure I used to… when you talk about your routine in the past.

Then write in the present tense when you tell about your daily routine these days.

               

               

Is it clear who the writing is about?

Does the introduction make you want to read on?

Are capital letters used for names of people and places?

Is it written in the correct person eg. First (autobiography) or third (biography)?

Does the text give you factual information about the person and events?

Are the person’s feelings and emotions included in the text?

Does it keep the reader interested -using well chosen words?

Does it have a satisfactory conclusion/ending?

An example of auto-biography

I had a very happy childhood and my earliest memory is that of waiting for my dad to come home from work on his motorbike. I would wait at the top of the driveway for him to get home. He would stop and pick me up and put me on the front of the bike and we would ride down the drive together to the garage. I can still remember the feeling of excitement as I saw him riding up the road to me. It was always a thrill to sit on the tank of the Honda and feel my dad revving the engine and that is probably where my love of riding motorbikes comes from.

Dad always tried to spend time with my sister and I. Every Christmas he would dress up as Santa and we would have a party with all the kids from down my street. One year when I was 6 he was away because of work and couldn’t be there for the Christmas party. My sister and I were devastated and we both cried all the way through the party. Right at the end in walked dad dressed as Santa like always, mum was smiling and Sarah and I ran up for a big hug. It was the best Christmas present and all we wanted at the time. Of course as we got older the tradition faded and Sarah and I just wanted to spend time with our friends. I think dad really enjoyed dressing up for us and was sad when we stopped asking for it, although we never talked about it.

An event that had a major effect on my life happened when I was seven years old. I was playing with my Star Wars figures in my room and decided that Luke Skywalker really needed a parachute. So I went to the kitchen and found a plastic bag and some string. The problem was I couldn’t find any scissors and needed to cut the string. I remembered I had seen mum cutting string with a knife.  In the kitchen draw I found a sharp looking knife with a wooden handle and wrapped the string around the knife. I pulled upwards on the knife, hard. Without warning the string snapped and the knife in my hand shot up towards my face. It was all over in less than a second. I stood there blinking. Something was wrong with my eye; all I could see out of it was a sort of mashed green jelly. I ran into my mum who took one look at me and turned white, she immediately called for an ambulance and I started to cry. I didn’t know at the time what a huge impact this event would have on my life but that trip to hospital was going to play a very big part in my life from then on.

BLINDNESS

People who are blind rely on their other senses-smell, touch, hearing, taste-to help them manage in the world. Blind people have to memorize identifying features, like sounds and smells, of the places that they often go. They also have to pay close attention to where things are located in their homes in order to get around safely, always putting objects in the same places after use so that they can be found again.

Some blind people use canes or guide dogs to get around. A white cane indicates that the person using it is visually impaired. Blind people tap their canes on sidewalks, floors, and streets. They learn to identify the locations of things-like steps, walls, or doors-simply by the different sounds that their cane taps make. Various high-tech devices have been invented, including laser canes, that use sound or light waves that bounce off objects and send signals to the user about where these objects are located, what they might be made of, and how big they are. Guide dogs, or seeing-eye dogs, are specially trained to lead blind people about. The dog and the person work as a team, with the dog following commands that help the blind person go about her day. The dog, in turn, signals the person when she is approaching a curb or when it is safe to cross a street.

Blindness is complete loss of sight. It can happen when certain parts of the eyeballs, the optic nerves (which carry visual signals from the eyes to the brain), or the sight centers of the brain are damaged. Such damage can occur as a result of injuries or diseases. A person can also be born with eye or brain abnormalities that cause blindness. In many cases, particularly in very poor countries, infectious diseases and poor diets can also cause blindness. A lack of vitamin A, in fact, is the leading cause of blindness worldwide. With basic medicines and proper nutrition, such cases could be prevented.

For every one person in the United States who is totally blind, there are four others who are visually impaired or "legally blind." These people have some ability to see, but they see so poorly-even with eyeglasses-that they cannot do things that require good vision, like driving a car.