The Family Tree Project:

Immediate Family Tree

Description

For this lesson, students will practice interviewing and summarizing by creating a project describing each member of their immediate family. Descriptions of family members will be organized into a Hyperstudio presentation incorporating text and graphics. Optional enrichment activities include creating links to websites that relate to a family member's interests or hobbies.

Objectives

The objectives of this portion of the Family Tree Project are:

• To orient the student to the theme of the family as the subject of research.
• To introduce the student to interviewing as a form of research.
• To give the student experience in summarizing and organizing content according to main ideas and suppoerting details
• To give the student experience in relating components of an overall theme into a graphic organizer (web).

The Sunshine State Standards (SSS)

The following SSS benchmarks align with this portion of the Family Tree Project:

• Language Arts, Strand A: Benchmarks 1.3.3; 1.3.4; 2.3.1; & 2.3.7
• Language Arts, Strand B: Benchmarks 1.3.3; 2.3.1; & 2.3.4
• Language Arts, Strand C: Benchmarks 1.3.1; 1.3.3; & 1.3.4
• Language Arts, Strand D: Benchmarks 2.3.4; & 2.3.5

Click here for full text of project benchmarks (Power Point presentation best if viewed with full screen option. Click icon in lower right corner)

Click here to view the full Sunshine State Standards

Procedures

1. Brainstorm: 5-10 minutes. Teacher and students discuss what "immediate family" is. Suggested memebers are written on a flipchart or whiteboard.
2. Advanced Organizer: 15 minutes to 1/2 hour, depending on detail. Students draw up a diagram (web fashion) of family members who are part of their everyday life. This may include anyone who resides in the household and family members that are seen on a regular (common) basis. (You may wish to use Inspiration Software to create the diagram.
3. Interview preparation: 30-45 minutes. Students work in small groups to determine the types of questions that should be asked. Students should include factors such as background knowledge, unknown information, and general willingness of the subject when deciding on topics to discuss.
4. Interviewing and note taking: As homework over several nights. Students conduct interviews. Use active listening techniques to elicit best responses. Students should also find appropriate photos for each family member to scanand include in the project.
5. Summarize main points of the interview: 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours Students draft summaries of their results.
6. Build a Hyperstudio or Power Point presentation: Approximately 2 hours: Include summaries, images, and (optional) links to related sites.
7. Share projects: One or two class periods. Collect projects onto a fileserver and allow for several to be displayed at once, or display one at a time on a presentation station.

Click to view a sample presentation (Note: You will need the Hyperstudio Plug-in to view this presentation)
Load the plug-in for Windows or for Macintosh or visit Hyperstudio's Website

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