Objectives:

• Students will apply what they have learned about how artifacts can be used as historical documents by synthesizing their information into interview questions that they will ask to a member of their own family.
• Students will build on their personal experience with and knowledge of their own family's history and stories by interviewing a relative.
• Students will organize and make use of this information (along with building upon the classroom community) by sharing what they learned about their families or themselves to the rest of the class.

Materials:

• Tanya's Reunion
• Chalk board or dry erase board
• paper
• pencils
• Family artifacts (students may share these if they want, when they tell about what they learned in their interview)

Procedure:

1. Read Tanya's Reunion to the whole class and then using questioning, open up a discussion about how and why the different artifacts represented the familyÕs history, stories, and experiences. Invite students to share stories of some important artifacts to their family. Many students may know of something that has been passed down in their family, others may need to start their investigation from this point.
2. Explain to students that they are going to be reporters for their family and investigate and share about some important artifacts and stories in their family. At this time or before explanation I will share an artifact from my family and give examples of some of the questions that I asked my grandparents.
3. Have students generate questions that they could ask a family member about an artifact or event. Type up questions for students to take home and use in their interviews.
4. Students can interview any relative they want, or several, older relatives may be able to provide stories that the students have never heard or are unfamiliar with. Students can interview in person, over the phone, or send a letter of inquiry.
5. As students complete their interviews, they can share what they learned with the class. If they are able encourage them to bring in the artifact as well, photos of the artifact are also a way to give the class a concrete image.

Evaluation:

1. Evaluation of discussion and how they are synthesizing the information about family stories and oral histories will be done through observation and questioning. I am looking for students to apply what we have been reading, in this book and others, to what we have been doing with our quilts. If I do not see them making the connections, I will guide them to it through questioning, otherwise just facilitate their discussion.
2. I will check each students interview questionnaire to see that they asked questions of a family member and recorded their responses.
3. I will check to see is they understand what they learned from their relative by their ability to share what went on in the interview and explain to the class how and why the artifact is important to the family. If a student is having a problem, I will guide them with questions.

Re-teaching/ Extension:

1. I good extension activity is to have family members come in and do the sharing with their student. This will help to provide even more information and extend our classroom community to the families of the child.
2. Students can write what they learned in the interview into a story or book format and make pictures of the artifacts and family member to go with it. This activity extends into the writing process and teaches children how writers often have to gain background information before they write a book or story.