Independent Teacher, The eJournal for Indpendent School Educators

"Everyone has a story to tell –
If only someone would listen,
If only someone would ask."

Today, stories are everywhere in our societies and culture. They are found in our music, books, movies, news media, religion, painting, architecture and urban legends (the modern equivalent of myths). They influence us in many ways, but often the most easily forgotten stories in today's fast paced lives are the stories of ourselves. The stories of our heritage, our families, and our lives provided a valuable vehicle for exploring the concepts of communication, community and culture in first grade's research workshop.

Anyone who has spent time with young children knows that their questions and observations are like none posed by seasoned reporters. Children possess the innate desire to figure out their world on their own terms often by touching, doing, and asking "why?". Even the most active, kinetic, and wiggly children have been know to freeze in the presence of a fantastic story teller. Imagine the impact of a great story told by one's own father, grandmother or aunt about life "back in the day." Young children's rapidly developing oral and receptive language skills make them ripe for learning about their own families through family story telling and can lay the ground work for family rituals and traditions. It can tie the present to your family's heritage and spur conversations, build connections, and affirm legacy.

Last fall, my colleagues and I worked with Sylvia Chard, the preeminent authority of the Project Approach. Our research workshop focuses on inquiry based research and the process of gathering information, acquiring new information, analyzing and synthesizing both by individual learners and as a class. The Project Approach provides a framework for generating questions (of teachers and children) way to conceptualize our work into to three phases, and methods for provoking children to think deeply about a topic before synthesizing information.

As the winter holidays approached, our project and research on families was underway. Broadly speaking we looked at family composition, what traits and characters are common among families, how unique differences set us apart and what it means to be a part of a family. Phase one of our project began with the students responding to the question: What is a family? They had many opinions as to what makes up a family, how they are similar and different, identifying feelings associated with family and things that families do. This phase involved reading literature that opened up numerous discussions about family make-ups that exist beyond the traditional and reflected the demographics of our class and school community. As part of our fieldwork, children queried and talked with their own families in our " Family Weekend Journals." All year, each child writes a short personal narrative letter that highlights something from our week. Families respond and the dialogue and quality of writing progress each week. By mid-year, we focused journal entries on the concept of family by placing a series of questions for each family to consider, discuss and share in the journal. Questions included:

These questions were addressed by individual families in the journals and provided the basis for group work during the week. As we shared the stories of our family, we found similarities and differences and heard children speak with pride about who they are in the context of their own family and the larger community. As teachers, we valued this opportunity to glean a clearer picture of our learners and the families with whom we work. We represented our work by compiling all the information about their responses to questions into a book entitled "What is a Family" and each child illustrated a page.

Once we had a broad understanding of the concept of family, we dug deeper to understand our own families with interviews of a family member more than one generation ahead of us. During second phase of the project, we shared a wonderful, but forgotten tale called The Lucky Stone, in which a young girl learns, by listening to stories her "Great Gran" told her, about the magic in a lucky stone passed down through multiple generations. Children orally compared their family members to the characters in the book and some did so in writing. Initially, many children reported they didn't know any stories from their grandparents or relatives. Slowly and surely, in our classroom, we began to hear the stories of each child's family - no lucky stones appeared in those, but we did hear of ancestors traveling and moving here, grandparents who walked to school and didn't have video games, doing chores on a farm and living through the depression. Parents and grandparents also expressed their delight in sharing stories at home around the dinner table, at bedtime, by looking at photos and mementos, and by initiating correspondence or phone.

Our fieldwork in this phase was an extension of what was portrayed in The Lucky Stone. As a class, we generated a list of questions that they would like to learn about someone that was at least two generations older, including:

Children chose at least 7 of the above questions to investigate via an interview with a family member who is a minimum of 2 generations older. Once completed, children worked in triads and shared the information they learned during the interview process. After they were done, they responded to 4 prompts:

At times, this fieldwork and investigation felt almost overwhelming, but overall, parents voiced their delight in the content, process and outcome of the interviews. Children recorded the interview in various forms (written, sketched, dictated) and with varying degrees of scaffolding from adults. We also felt the need for a "hands-on" way to represent this fieldwork, so children made clay busts of the subject of their interviews. Many of these were complete with hair, freckles, moles and all the intricate details they could recall from their subjects and were displayed along side the written record of the interview.

As part of our investigation of generations, and the final step of phase three, families worked together to respond to the questions and select several artifacts that they could display in a Family Museum. Children worked with families and in the classroom to display, write a museum guide and orally share o about their artifacts and family. At the museum, children and family guests took turns being exhibitors and visitors so they could celebrate the similarities and differences that exist amongst all the families. We viewed an amazing collection of artifacts - antiques trains and pasta makers, photos, maps, souvenirs, passports, cookbooks, sports memorabilia. You name it, and someone had it in our museum! Each exhibit included stories to be told and an audience to listen and ask questions. In addition, each family brought in a food that was special to their family and those recipes were shared in a class cookbook.

It's easy to overlook the obvious stories about our own families but we're hopeful that story telling will continue in each family for years to come. Story telling is an ongoing process in families, communities and cultures, but it starts with an individual understand who she is and feeling comfortable sharing those stories with an audience. This project provided us with a rich and meaningful way for children to gain a better understand of who they are and who there family is, and to gain an appreciation for then connections and diversity of all families. Hearing children speak with amazement, pride and curiosity about their family, gives us reason to pause and enjoy the great privilege we have in working with young children and families. We all have a story to tell and most all of us would love to listen. If only someone would listen, if only someone would ask.

Clifton, Lucille. (1986). The Lucky Stone. New York: Yearling Books. New York: Yearling Books.
A lucky stone provides good fortune for its various owners.

Chard, Sylvia (2000). Engaging Children's Minds: The Project Approach. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Books. See also www.projectapproach.org
The three typical phases of project work are presented and detailed suggestions for implementing each one are described. Using specific examples, this book clarifies and articulates the process and benefits of the project approach. These specific examples outline how children's intellectual development is enhanced.

Rogovin, Paula (2002). Classroom Interviews: A World of Learning. New Hampshire: Heinemann Books.
The author explores how family interviews play an integral part of learning in one of New York City's most progressive and diverse elementary schools.

Zimmerman, Bill (1992). How to Tape Instant Oral Biographies New York: Bantam Books. (see also his site, http://www.billztreasurechest.com/fun_family.html)
With fun interview techniques, readers will learn how to spark memories, recall treasured stories, relate old family anecdotes, sayings, recipes and more. The text also offers ideas for taping family members in settings using items such as heirlooms.

www.storycorps.net
StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another's lives through listening. By recording the stories of our lives with the people we care about, we experience our history, hopes, and humanity.

Lisa Dewey Wells currently teaches first grade with Kelly Lane at St. Anne's School of Annapolis. Throughout the year in first grade, communication in various modes is researched, practiced and utilized. Storytelling engaged both children and adults this year and paved the way for further research in this inquiry-based program.