Abstract
This lesson uses Susan Bosak's "Something to Remember Me By" as a literary springboard into an analysis of artifacts and documents [history benchmarks 2 & 3]. Grandparents or other "significant elders" visit class and bring "memory boxes" containing artifacts and documents that reveal important information about themselves and provide the students with "some things to remember them by."

Targeted Audience: Grades K-3

Time to Complete: 3 days

Benchmark Addressed: History 2 [Analysis]

• Use artifacts and documents to gather information about the past.
  
• Understand that historical accounts are constructed by drawing logical inferences from artifacts and documents.

Material Needed

Bosak, Susan V. (1997) Something to Remember Me By: An Illustrated Story for Young and Old. The Communication Project. Toronto, Canada.

Procedures

1. Several Weeks Prior to the Lesson send a letter home describing the event that this lesson suggests. You may want to give it a title such as Grandparent Day, Remembrance Day, United Generation Day. In the letter you should ask parents or guardians to invite one of their child's grandparents or significant elders to accompany the child into class on the appointed day. You may want to embellish beyond the essentials (e.g. have them as guests for lunch) but, for purposes of addressing the goals of this lesson, they should bring a box containing items (artifacts and documents) that the grandparent wants to give or share with the child in the hope of nurturing memories about their own lives and their relationship with the child. Tell them that the purposes of the activity is to help students understand that the story of the past is often pieced together by people who analyze artifacts and documents and to help build relationships between generations. You might suggest that the grandparents decorate their box to look like a cedar chest.

Ask the grandparent or significant elder not to share the contents of their memory boxes until the day set aside for the class activity. You might also ask the parents in the letter to keep the event a secret so that the children are surprised.

2. Day 1

A. Do a read aloud of Susa Bosak's "Something to Remember Me By." The story is a charming account of the evolving relationship between a grandmother and granddaughter and what the grandmother gives to her granddaughter in the hope that she will not be forgotten. One of the items is a cedar chest full of artifacts and documents.

B. Ask students
· What was the grandmother worried about?
· What did grandmother do to insure that she would be remembered?
· What kinds of things did the grandmother give to the girl (list them on the board)?
· What do you think that the girl will remember about the grandmother based on what she gave her?
· What did the granddaughter give to the grandmother at the end of the story? Why did she give it to her?
· What would you give to your grandmother to build a special memory?

Building on Susan Bosak's story, you may ask the students to either create something, or bring something into class) that they would want to give to their grandparents or significant elders as a way of preserving a special memory.

3. Day 2: Grandparents or Significant Elders Visit Class
Decorate the classroom with welcoming signs. When the grandparents…arrive go around the room and ask the students to introduce their grandparent or significant elder. Either in a whole group setting or in pairs (grandparent-student), ask the grandparents or significant elders to:

• explain what they have brought,
  
• share the contents of their "memory boxes," and
  
• probe the students to see what each item seems to reveal about their grandparent

4. Day 3: Writing Activity
Have students write about what they will remember about their grandparents or the significant elder who visited them in class yesterday.