The sixteenth century witnessed the production of a series of biographical dictionaries of poets, known by the generic title tezkire, which first gave pride of place to Ottoman literary achievements. A fundamental aim of these early biographical dictionaries was to provide a curriculum of authorial models, as the work of certain poets was privileged over that of others. At the same time, writings on poetics and lexicons in verse also were singled out for study. The pedagogical aspect of these biographical dictionaries, however, has often been overlooked in scholarly assessments. The paper focuses on the standards promoted in one biographical dictionary, that of A??k Çelebi. His tezkire is the most important initial effort to delineate a distinctive Ottoman curriculum, and laid the groundwork for subsequent elaborations. In addition, the paper situates A??k Çelebi’s tezkire in the context of an expanding literary public and addresses the question of what constituted appropriate literacy. His effort to delineate a distinctive Ottoman curriculum, as will be argued, rested on motivations that were as clearly social as well as aesthetic.