How does the past influence the present?

Exploring Family Past and Present: Reading and Writing about History focuses on family life in the past and the present. It asks students to compare family life in New England in the early 1800s with family life today. Many students perceive history as a series of facts that have little relevance to their own lives. What they do not often think about is that family history is part of everyone’s experience and that knowing about the past helps us understand the present better. Each of us is part of a long historical story. Along with our families, neighbors, and friends, we make history happen every day by the choices we make—just as people did in the past. In addition, we each possess a unique collection of family memories about people, places, and events that touched us in ways that we’ll never forget. We can learn from the recent past—our family stories—but we can learn even more by putting those stories into perspective by comparing them with stories from the more distant past.

The curriculum focuses on the interaction of the individual, family, society, and culture in the past and present. It explores how changes in family and society affect our choices and identities. American society is steadily becoming more complex and more racially and ethnically diverse. Yet the patterns of family life that we see in the United States are in many ways an inheritance from earlier generations—from choices made not simply by parents and grandparents but by great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. By comparing their own family experiences with those of families in the past, students can see how and why their lives are changing, how they are making history.

As students portray a member of an 1830s rural New England family, they gather evidence from a variety of sources. In conjunction with this, students record their own histories and research the history of their families and communities. Students develop critical thinking skills as they formulate and apply concepts to explain what they have discovered. Through the study of historical sources, active experiences at Old Sturbridge Village and in their own communities, students will develop observation, reading, imagination, communication, and writing skills.

This curriculum unit contains:
1. Unit overview including a list of the lessons

2. Lesson Plans that include

• Lesson Content:
  
  
  
  • Overview
    
  • Grade level
    
  • Goals and Objectives
    
  • Assessment suggestions
    
  • Keywords (when applicable)
    
  • Connection to National Standards
    
  
  
• Lesson Activities:
  
  • Directions
    
  • Activity Sheets (when applicable)
    
  • Primary Source Documents (when applicable)
    
  • Papers and Articles (when applicable)
    
  • Teacher Resources (when applicable)
  
  

3. An optional videotape, “Growing Up in New England” is available through the Old Sturbridge Village Bookstore for use in Lesson 4, “Family Roles and Functions in the Early 1800s.”

4. When available, field studies to Old Sturbridge Village, in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, or other historic sites provide opportunities for student research and to help the study come alive.

Teachers may choose to use some activities and not others. The amount of time each activity takes will depend on your class format and schedule. Many of the activities work best in small groups; not all students need to do all activities.

Upper Elementary, Middle

• Using the students’ own experiences, the students will develop a concept of “culture” (including values about dress, language, food, recreation, material life, and patterns of behavior) and explore how culture defines personal and group identity. Students will also identify ways that people from diverse cultures help shape the larger American culture.
  
• Students will learn about the many shapes that families take today and compare them with the family patterns of 1830. Through comparisons of family composition and family structure, students will be able to make statements about how the structure of families has remained the same, how it has changed and why.
  
• Students will gather information about what families do for their members and what members do for their families (the concept of family roles and functions) in the 1830s and today. In the process, students will identify changes in the roles of family members and in the functions of families.

The written assignments and projects included in the lesson plans provide you with opportunities to assess the progress your students are making in understanding the information and concepts, and learning the skills of the unit. The students’ project materials constitute a portfolio of progress. We also suggest that students keep a journal (or a “Writer’s Notebook”) both to deepen their understanding of family life in the present and the past, and for continuous evaluation by the teacher.