As a culminating assignment students will write a researched family history where they will use both narrative writing and expository writing to present the story of their family much like James McBride did in
The Color of Water
. The family history will consist of the following parts – Introduction, Memoir, Research, and Conclusion. In the introduction, students will briefly outline their family dynamics by discussing who they consider to be their nuclear family and where they call their home. In the memoir section, students will experiment with narrative as a memoirist would by creating three vignettes to present a person, place, and event that had an impact upon them.
The research section will be the student's most intense undertaking and will require them to interview family members as primary sources. Their interviews with their chosen family members will lead them to create a research question that they will then use secondary sources to research. For example, a student with Jamaican heritage might be interested in learning more about the political or economical events that caused his family to emigrate from Jamaica. This student will use the interviews with their family members as a starting point and then look to various articles or news sources to determine what factors came into play.
Some students find it very difficult to interview certain family members, or want to write about aspects of their family that make it impossible for them to conduct formal research. As an alternative to this section, I suggest an assignment where students dig through their family memorabilia and present their journey in writing as a wonderful way to allow for individuality and creativity in the final project. For instance, a student wanting to learn more about a deceased relative could sort through the family memorabilia surrounding this relative to piece together a history for this person. A grandfather's life could be outlined through pictures, keepsakes, war medals, and family records. In this way, students would still be doing family research, but it would be of a more exploratory and personal nature than inventing a formal research question to work around.
Part 3 – Resources
In order for students to be able to complete the research portion of this project they need to be taught how to interview, what questions to ask, what makes an engaging research question, and how to find reliable sources on the internet. This can be accomplished in a variety of different ways. There are many resources available for compiling genealogical research that give suggested interview questions. I think it would be helpful to give the students some questions to ask as a beginning point before asking them to generate their own questions. One book that is helpful for this was
To Our Children's Children
, which gave many good questions to ask when interviewing. Some students will be more motivated to research their family history than others. I use an interview with Alex Haley, author of
Roots,
where he discusses the search for his past and what it meant to him to be able to write the story down for future generations. This interview, as well as other educator resources, are available at: www.kintehaley.org. One of the most motivational things I found to do with students was have brief one-on-one meetings to help them formulate a good research question or to give them an idea of which direction they would like to proceed. I discovered that a conversation about their family usually revealed some mystery that they wanted to solve or some person or place that they were interested in learning more about.
Part 3 – Suggestions for Further Reading
In this section students are free to choose how they want to tackle researching their family origins. The most rich research questions will be developed around the relationship between history, society, and family. Basically they should consider how history affected their family, and then how their family created history for itself. One resource I found helpful when considering the history of immigrant populations in America was
American Mosaic
, which is a collection of stories from immigrants to the United States that span over a hundred years and give a very good picture of how these immigrants lives were affected by their experiences. Many of my students can trace their family history to the southern cities and the great migration, therefore I thought that
The Warmth of Other Suns
was a very good resource for me in understanding the factors in migrating and the experiences of those who moved to the north from the south at this time. Some students chose to write about their family's connection with the city that they currently live in, which is very interesting when their history in that city goes back generations. One author that uses this model very effectively is Edward Rutherford. In his books he uses the stories of the citizens of a certain city or country to tell the history of that place. I recommend his book
New York
. For a look at the history of New Haven, the book
City: Urbanism and Its End
looks closely at many factors throughout New Haven's long history that came together to make it the city we currently live in. If you would like to continue your research on the city of New Haven, there is also the New Haven Museum which is filled with interesting documents, exhibits, and curators to answer your questions.