Student Activity Sheets on the following:
· My Story, An Autobiographical Essay
· Who I am, Right Now! Autobiographical Sketch
· My Family History, A Biographical Report
A Family History Questionaire to use
· Heritage Report, A Report of Information
Access to the Internet
Access to PowerPoint
Any Word Processing Program
Procedure:
Set: For the next few months, your writing assignments will be focused around you and your
family. You will being investigating your own family history and heritage. You
will be writing essays on you, your family, and your family "roots".
Lesson: When introducing each essay, make an overhead of
the student handout, and go over each section with the class giving examples
along the way. I allot one week for a rough draft, and one week for a final
draft. I usually conference with the students prior to them writing a final
draft. For the Family History and Heritage Reports, allow an extra week for
research.
Closing:
Writing about you and your family's history will be a very exciting and meaningful project. You are the expert on yourself, and soon you will become an expert in genealogy too.
Grade each final essay for writing content, grammar, etc.
Extension Activities:
Heritage Festival: Plan a food feast where students either volunteer to make a favorite family dish which represents their heritage, or locate an ethnic recipe on the internet. Our Heritage Festival took place on the last day of school before the Christmas break in place of a Holiday Party.