Introductory+Activity

=Grabbing the Students Attention =



For several days before the initial meeting with interested students, some sort of display should be created to catch students attention and intrigue them. Perhaps a poster with some headstones (similar to the one pictured above) could be displayed somewhere in the library. Alternately, some actual tombstones could be created out of cardboard. Or, some old family photos, maybe a birth certificate, and a magnifying glass could be displayed together. The idea with the display is to give the students some idea that this workshop will involve looking into the past, without giving too much away.

At the initial meeting of the group, you can use the poster or display to introduce the students to some of the aspects of genealogy that the students might want to explore. For example, if you have several tombstones, you could have a different name on each tombstone and give a brief example of a different kind of exploration for each person - perhaps show a family tree for one person, information on the family surname for another person, and a poster with information on the country of origin for the third person. The same kind of introduction could be done using old family photographs (download them from the internet if you don't have some of your own!) The idea is to expose the students, very briefly, to different aspects of family history that they might want to explore further.

=The Initial Activity =

For the initial activity, students will be completing a brief family questionnaire, using The Story of Me printout from the book //Climbing Your Family Tree// by Ira Wolfman. Allow the students some time to complete as much of the questionnaire as possible. Then provide the students with highlighters and invite them to highlight any parts of the sheet that they weren't able to complete but would like to find out about.

Once this activity is done, facilitate a conversation with the students about what they already know about their families and what other things they would like to find out. As the conversation continues, encourage the students to jot down notes about other things they are interested in finding out about their families. At this point, you might want to show the video to them found on the Genealogy 101 page on family history basics.

At the conclusion of this initial activity, invite the students to become family history detectives with you and challenge them to answer the big question...


 * What is something you would like to learn about your family?**

Future workshop sessions can then be devoted to helping students begin to answer this question.