PBTIL - Marsh Team

Community Ties

Family Interviews
Our English Language Arts class has been busy this spring reading and writing about various characters who have moved for one reason or another. Some of these characters are fictitious, and some are real.
Among these characters are pioneers, migrant workers and immigrants. The books we have read include: How Many Days to America? by Eve Bunting; exerpts from Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder; Blue Willow by Doris Gates; The Chickenhouse House by Ellen Howard; and The California Gold Rush by Elizabeth Van Steenwyk.

Reading about all these courageous characters has made us think about people in our own families who have also moved. We decided to make up a questionnaire and find out some of the reasons that our family members have moved, and how they felt about the changes in their lives.
Our whole class brainstormed nine questions that we should ask our interviewees, and we left question number ten open to make up one of our own as we conducted the interview. After the interview, we took their pictures with a disposable camera. Then we came back to the classroom and typed our interviews.

This program is supported in part by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts, Lowell.