| This idea was submitted to the
R.S. list I was on about a year ago by Connie Myers. I thought it might be helpful
and could be adapted to work with YW °Ü°
Reference the "One Hour Personal History" information
printed in the June 1994 Ensign article called "One Hour Life
History" by Carol Huber.
I created pages based on Sister Huber's article. Each page
had a cute border on it. One page might say, "Names, birthplaces, and birthdates of
my parents:" and then further down the page, "Names, birthplaces and birthdates
of my brothers and sisters:". Read the article for further ideas. I made a packet of
about 8 or 10 information pages, plus a copy of the article, plus two blank pages with
just the border so the sisters could copy it to add to their book later, if they wished.
The night of the class, I handed out packets of the pages,
which were already three hole punched. The women sat at a table in the Relief Society room
and I had classical music playing quietly in the background. Everyone was asked to bring
their favorite pen but I had spares just in case. I explained that they needed to write
succinctly and not stray into far-afield stories, and told them to begin. I walked around
behind them to keep an eye on their progress. I encouraged them every now and then by
saying, "Everyone should be on page 3 now, writing about the schools they
attended." Keeping them on track was the most important part of my job.
I also had blank pages available and alternative topics
written on the board--so that when a single sister got to the "I was married . . .
" page, she could chose to write about her best Christmas memory or her best friend
instead.
As each person finished, I put her pages in a paperboard
folder with aluminum prongs--so that the pages wouldn't get lost and the sister really was
taking home a finished project. I had a label on the front of the folder and asked her to
write her name and Personal History on the front.
Everyone was done in 55 minutes and just raved about the
class. I actually got thank-you notes. It's the easiest class I've ever taught, but it's
very satisfying both to the teacher and to the students.
Submitted by Shauna in sunny Ivins shauna [shauna@color-country.net]
Sisters,
For those of you that are giving the lesson on journals there is a
great story in the May 1974 Era called Benjamin: Son of the Right Hand. It is about a boy
that finds his great uncless journal and reads out of it. Changes his life.
Submitted by:TyraSue in Roosevelt, UT TYras@sisna.com
Idea for lesson #19 Personal Records: Have each of
the yw in your class (depending on how many you have) bring a journal entry of their
mother's or grandmother's and have them share it and then discuss why it is important to
keep journals.
Another idea would be to put on a little skit of a girl in pioneer days writing in her
journal and then having a girl from this generation read it and show how it helped her in
her life.
Submitted by: Christy Wanlass scrap-happy@att.net
Another idea the girls might go for... have
them print out emails they have sent (usually located in the sent items box) and put them
in a folder... they are dated and usually contain a lot of info we might not have time to
write in a journal!
Submitted by: Bettina Slottved bettina@slottved.dk
I just want to express my feeling concerning
scrapbooking and journaling. I am not a very good journal writer myself but I find it
dangerous (in lack of a better word) to suggest that we may/can do scrapbooking instead of
journaling. In my opinion, one of the must valuable assets of a journal is not the day to
day hustle and bustle and remembering vacations etc but the emotions that I go through,
the thoughts that I have and the worries etc, and I don’t think that that is included
in a scrapbook.
I have an old journal from my great-grand father and the thing
that impresses me the most, is his expression of love for my great-grand mother. He also
wrote about the day-to-day business but it was the feelings that I remember.
Please don’t feel that I am putting down scrapbooking (I love
doing that), I just don’t think that it replaces writing a journal.
Submitted by: Jane in AF, UT bigmamajane@juno.com
I have quite a few girls who have been scrapbooking faithfully for
a few years. For their Laurel project, I have had them go back to each page of pictures
and write a journal page about the event...feelings they had about it, who was there, what
happened, etc. This has gotten them on the track to be more diligent in keeping current
journals. They then insert the page next to their scrapbook page. I wish I was as good
about journals and scrapbooks as this generation.
Judy - Salem, OR Judy.Weems@Mitsubishisilicon.com
(What a good reminder for all of us. I know I have lost
important material too because I haven't backed-up :-(
Since this lesson is coming up Sunday for us I decided to review
and clean-mine up a little last night. I have used a journaling program for years. Somehow
the database got corrupted and my last backup was October....I haven't slept hardly at all
tonight.. what a loss. And yes, I know better. In teaching this lesson, on-line journals
may be one of the options presented.... please present the pitfalls of not backing up or
printing out often, and you're welcome to use this poor leaders experience as an example.
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