Abstract: Based on the material of classical and modern works on the methodology of teaching literature and learning Russian as a foreign language, the specifics of teaching the biography of a writer in secondary and high schools are analyzed. At the beginning of the article, the primary methods and approaches to defining biographical material are described, and the problems arising during its study are identified. The key difference between courses representing the literary process concentrically and the study of literature designed for a semester (or two-semester) study is shown. In the latter case, each topic is mastered once, which makes it impossible to draw parallels and update previously studied contexts. Many students coming to Russia for internships are at the mercy of persistent stereotypes associated with the Modern and Post-Modern eras. The teacher's goal is to develop critical thinking skills during one semester or academic year. The practical part of the study describes the experience of studying the biography of a writer by international students from European and Chinese universities, with special emphasis on studying the literary heritage of the twentieth century. The options for using digital methods in classes on writer's biographies are presented, and the forms of work are described: literary portraits, comparative descriptions, source analysis, discourse, and content analysis. The novelty of the work lies in the study of methodological problems and approaches to their solution, as well as the selection of ways to update biographical material. Based on methodological experience and survey data, the author proceeds from the possibility of studying Russian culture and literature through the prism of biographies. Studying the biography of a writer involves a constant expansion of the context; it is necessary to talk about the writer or poet's contemporaries and describe the literary environment and life to create the impression of a continuous process. The task of the methodologist is to show the variety of assessments and the specifics of lifetime and posthumous assessments that affect the design of a biographical myth. As a result of mastering topics related to a writer's biography, foreign readers can become involved in the lives of outstanding personalities who are united not by geography or political views but by language as the primary tool of culture.