At-Risk Adolescents: Using the Past to Help Find a Future

Getting at-risk students to find value in school is extremely difficult.  Unstable home lives combined with unengaging educational experiences turn students off school.  Many of them have a difficult time with reading, writing and general process skills, and rarely have time for homework.  The opportunity to explore family history provides students with an engaging hook to get them invested in reading and research.

One case study showed how family history can engage students in reading, writing and research by working through Help Me Find My People (Heather Williams, UNC) as well as the American Slave Narratives site.  Using resources from Ancestry.com (including Newspapers.com and Fold3.com) helped one student researched her own family history and created a first person narrative research project that she presented to her family.