Sample Syllabus for an online course in creative genealogy writing:

Syllabus- Creative Genealogy Writing

Sample Syllabus

This syllabus can be stretched out to be a course lasting a year, a semester, or 10 weeks. If you whittle it down to 10 weeks, make sure to make it less ambitious and include fewer items to cover. Students taking this as a class or in a continuing creative genealogy writing group will be working on these projects part time at their leisurely pace.

So you probably will not be able to cover all items unless this course is in a continuing club or group. In a classroom, you’ll have to revise your own syllabus to meet the length of your class requirements, such as a 5-week class, 10-week class, semester class, or two semesters. Therefore, be sure to adapt and revise this syllabus to cover what you want as your goals by asking the students for feedback on what they want and need to learn in the length of time allotted.

Try Something New

Creative genealogy writing can include something new such as recipes for home-made natural plant-based cleaning products, diaries, living legacies, and specialized living legacies and celebrations of life. They can include time capsules with genograms, medical records histories of families for future generations’ reference and useful information. Material also would be of interest to historians, researchers, medical and scientific researchers, educators, oral history librarians, as well as progeny. Short stories, novels, and plays also are born with genealogy records as their roots.

Here’s my sample syllabus. Adapt your own syllabus to the length and emphasis of your class, group, project, research, or event.

Creative Genealogy Writing Sample Syllabus

Class Meeting Information
This course meets online.

Instructor Information
Name:
Office Phone:
Email:
Web site: http://annehart.tripod.com

Sample instructor biography:

Anne Hart, M.A., is a popular novelist and playwright with 85 paperback books currently in print. She holds a graduate degree in English/Creative Writing and is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), Dog Writers Association of America, and Mensa. She has been writing professionally since 1963. Her full biography appears at http://annehart.tripod.com/id16.html.

Prerequisites — Classes or Knowledge Required for this Course

None, but an interest in writing and researching nonfiction, fiction, or drama/docudrama about life stories, genealogy, history, social issues, memoirs, biography, current events, or an interest in genealogy is helpful.

Course Description

Almost everyone is interested in the migrations, history, significant life events, turning points, and highlights of his or her ancestors. This 10-week online introductory course represents the “marriage” of creative writing with genealogy, to create stories and record personal histories to be passed on to relatives or researchers in the future.
Identify individuals and their ancestors using paper records, online searches, surname groups online, and DNA-driven genealogy resources. Information from research is then applied to creative writing with a goal of developing salable materials in a variety of genres—memoir, personal history, drama/plays/scripts/monologues, docudrama, essay, articles, true life stories, or simply publishing family newsletters. Weekly writing assignments usually will be one or two pages of writing.

Course Objectives (after completing this course, the student will be able to):
1. Use the methods of scientific genealogical research.
2. Establish lines of descent for the person or family you select and develop a pedigree chart or family history tree of names with critical dates such as birth, marriage, and death for each ancestor on the family tree and/or pedigree chart.
3. Organize genealogy records using online technology to research or supplement written records.
4. Interview and record relatives or selected persons.
5. Write a publishable 1,000-word researched family history/genealogy article.

Evaluation

Class participation and completion of projects/assignments is due by the end of the course. Assignments are due by the due date specified in the handout.

Equipment

Access to the Internet, a personal computer and printer, a tape or other audio digital recorder or camcorder using either tape or DVDs, and a DVD or CD recorder/R/RW disk drive in your computer or other device that saves a computer file to a CD and/or a DVD. Save your recorded projects on DVDs or CDs. Instruction will be provided on how to save any recorded material to a DVD or CD. Technical help will be available.

Course Text – Choose One

Hart, Anne. (2007). Ethno-Playography: How to Create Salable Ethnographic Plays, Monologues & Skits from Life Stories, Social Issues, and Current Events. ASJA Press imprint, iUniverse, (1-800-Authors) or order from any online bookseller or from publishers at: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46066-6
ISBN: 978-0-595-46066-3.
The Ethno-Playography book is primarily for creative writers interested in using genealogy records to write plays, monologues, skits, or novels and real life stories or memoirs. If you choose this book you’ll also get materials of value to enhance your creativity and have a wider platform, a more versatile approach to adapting life stories to plays, skits, monologues, or stories and novels/essays and other genres such as niches, how to sell your play, and creating mini-books based on life stories, personal histories, and genealogy records or plays and monologues and essays.

Or:

How to Start a Creative Genealogy Writing Class or Club (this book) and the following articles on creative writing (not on genealogy topics) on Amazon Shorts (http://www.amazon.com/amazon-shorts-digital-shorts/b?ie=UTF8&node=13993911)

Articles:

1. How to Write Salable/Commercial Short Stories for Popular Magazines Using the Formula of Multiples of Three for Balance, an Amazon Short
by Anne Hart (Author) Amazon Shorts (49 cents) at:
http://www.amazon.com/Salable-Commercial-Stories-Magazines-Multiples/dp/...

2. How to Write a Historical Novel, an Amazon Short
by Anne Hart (Author) Amazon Shorts (49 cents) at: http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Historical-Novel/dp/B0010W756E/ref=sr_1_...

3. How to Develop Depth of Character in Your Fiction, an Amazon Short
by Anne Hart (Author) Amazon Shorts (49 cents) at:
http://www.amazon.com/Develop-Depth-Character-Your-Fiction/dp/B0010W755U...

A Fashion Guide to Spatial Feminism: Full Metal Corsets?, an Amazon Short by Anne Hart (Author) Amazon Shorts (49 cents) at:
http://www.amazon.com/Fashion-Guide-Spatial-Feminism Corsets/dp/B0010W7564/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210290850&sr=1-1

Evaluation and Grading
Individual Assignments 50 %

Participation in class forum discussions 50 %

Grading Scale
A = 90% – 100%
B = 80% – 89%
C = 70% – 79%
D = 60% – 69%

Course Outline

Lesson or Week # 1

Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 231-253
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss how to write and format a 72-page sweet family history story, novella, or short play/skit/monologue into a 4 by 6 inch print on demand or self-published gift book or salable book.
• Decide to write and publish genealogy as an inspirational book
• Or create a 98-page family history chronicle or novella for sale to gift shops or specialty and niche shops/ distributors/sellers.
• Students receive advice on how to improve their writing submitted by email in order to make it more salable, and to eliminate long paragraphs, long sentences, clichés, and writing that falls down in the middle. Student learns what type of writing sells or is preferred in the memoirs, family history, or genealogy-related genres whether fiction, nonfiction, drama, docudrama, essay, or article—memoir, life story, biography, autobiography, gift book, history, novel, drama, skit, script, multimedia presentation, annual family newsletter, or children’s book.
Assignments Due Reading assignments due weekly. Students choose which writing assignments to do depending on their time and email writing assignments for mentoring, suggestions, or advice regarding any changes to make their work salable.
Method of Instruction Online information and resources supplied by email in addition to text book above.

Lesson or Week # 2
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 254- 312, pages 349-365
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss how to format your family history novel, story, novella, play, or script.
• Discuss self-promotion techniques, how to plug self-published or POD published (print on demand) family history novels, stories, articles, plays, skits, gift books, monologues, or essays. Student learns what ethnographic writing in various genres are about and how to sell/promote ethnographic or genealogy-based creative writing.
• Student learns the 65 ways to create humor and/or comedy as salable family history/genealogy creative writing in various popular genres.
Assignments Due Writing assignments are due each week along with the short chapter readings.

Method of Instruction Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.

Lesson or Week # 3
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 401- 422, 435-509
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Research how to use genealogy as social history for playwrights
• Research how to open a home-based online business producing family history training videos or plays/skits/monologues based on life stories, social history, personal history, events, or current issues in the news. Writing, designing and publishing an annual family newsletter.
• Students will be emailed a list of more than 1,000 action verbs and information on how to write, design, and publish compelling family newsletters.
Assignments Due Writing assignments are due each week along with the short chapter readings.
Method of Instruction Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.

Lesson or Week # 4
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 278-295
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss and research how to develop a plan for pre-selling a family history article, play, essay, story, or skit
• Develop an age-appropriate hub or online Web site or keepsake album with text and images or sound or print only for sweet family history novels, skits, play or dialogue excerpts, true stories, or the annual family newsletter.
• Write an article for an annual family newsletter on a genealogy-related topic
• Make a brief storyboard outline
• Define and/or develop a platform of visibility plus expertise
Assignments Due Writing assignments and reading are due each week along with the short chapter readings. Textbook is in relatively large print and easy to read.
Method of Instruction Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.

Lesson or Week # 5
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 393-422
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Research how to use or start an online genealogy broadcast, podcast or TV show
• Look at Roots TV™ Web site at http://rootstelevision.com
• Research how to collect videos from people who have recorded genealogy information
• Research how to adapt personal history stories to a script, story, summary, skit, essay, article or other creative writing/imaginative writing format.
•
• Write a short piece on how to revive genealogy-based old maids’ parties or: design a photo, illustration, with a paragraph of text for a proposed deck of genealogy cards using various concepts from your imagination. Example, playing cards with photos of ancestors and their genealogy information in a short paragraph or sentence such as dates, genograms, or other information of value to future generations.
Assignments Due Writing assignments are due each week along with the short chapter readings. Textbook is in relatively large print and easy to read.
Method of Instruction Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.

Lesson or Week # 6
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 423-478
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Create a genealogy journalism or life story/memoirs Web Cast
• Discuss and research how to rescue documents, diaries, records, and photos from old genealogy sources.
• Discuss and research how to produce a short genealogy video podcast and save on a DVD or post to a Web site. Alternative: Produce an annual family newsletter and save to a CD or DVD. The family newsletter can consist of text-print-news- or be in video or audio clips or a multimedia combination of text, sound, images, photos, and video. Save as a file in your computer and to a disc or upload it to a Web site.

• Discuss and research what video or audio podcasting family history or annual family newsletters are about and how to produce and/or learn more about where to post your podcast from your brief written script, short enough to fit into a newsletter. Alternative: write a plan and/or excerpt from the family annual newsletter. Weekly writing should be short excerpts, outlines, or plans. You won’t be able to write an entire play, skit, monologue or novella in a week or even 10 weeks. So excerpts, plans, outlines, treatments, springboards, genograms, and short prose or filler-length articles are acceptable for weekly assignments.
Assignments Due Writing assignments are due each week along with the short chapter readings. Textbook is in relatively large print and easy to read.
Method of Instruction Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.

Lesson or Week # 7
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 479-538
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss and research how to use genealogy records/resources to produce family history reunions in person or the annual family history updates as a print or online newsletter.
• Discuss and research how to bring long separated family members together in person or in print, from the distant past or present. How videoconferences differs from podcasts (online broadcasts) on family history
• Discuss and research how to write about DNA-driven genealogy—handouts will be emailed or posted online.
• Discuss and research how many different careers, jobs, or small businesses can result from training in family history journalism (at least 102 different categories).
• Write an outline for a short ‘skit’ or a monologue, essay, article, life story excerpt/experiences or a memoirs-related play and a few paragraphs of dialogue on a topic related to family history, genealogy, life stories, personal history, or DNA-driven genealogy—where the written records stop.
• Or write an excerpt of dialogue and stage directions for a stage play or sound effects and dialogue for a radio play, video or online multimedia theatrical presentation. Genealogy also can be turned into musical theater or an audio recording saved as an MP3 file to be used as a podcast or put on disc.
• Discuss and research how to interview others for personal history/life story highlights and significant events. Compose 10 questions to ask someone you would want to interview on video about his/her life story, ancestry, or family history in relation to events, issues, celebrations of life, or historic events.
• Discuss and research how to use memoirs writing for memory enhancement, recall, and reminiscing for creativity enhancement.
Assignments Due Write a list of questions you’d ask someone you’d interview about his/her life story significant events and highlights in order to write a play about that person’s life or personal history. Why did you select those particular questions? How many questions do you think would be sufficient for a 15-minute interview or a ½ hour life story recording on a CD or video to become a DVD? You don’t actually have to interview someone yet.
Method of Instruction Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.

Lesson or Week # 8
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 197-277, 349-365
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss and research how to make a migration map of your ancestors or anyone else’s ancestors.
• Learn to write interview questions.
• Learn to interview one another or your own relatives or interview older people at senior centers to record and transcribe excerpts from significant events in a life story or a life story highlight.
• Ask those questions of the person you interview in order to create a brief family history or life story highlights of significant events or an outline and sample excerpt from their life story transcribed from an audio or video recording. You can use any tape recorder, digital recorder, or your camcorder or use audio and photographs. Save in your computer or just transcribe as text if you don’t have any type of recording devices. A digital recorder is recommended for interviews.

Assignments Due
• Interview one another. Team up with a partner from this class and ask the questions you prepared—either 10 to 20 questions for an audio or video interview. Digitally record the interview and transcribe the first five minutes only or five pages or less of the interview. If you can’t find someone in the class to interview, you can interview someone in your family or visit a senior center and record a few minutes of someone’s answers to personal history questions you’ve put in your outline of questions to ask on recording life stories.

Writing assignments are due each week along with the short chapter readings.
• You can even save a digital recorder’s audio as an MP3 file in your computer and transcribe a page of the dialogue of the interview as text. You don’t have to transcribe an entire interview, just a few minutes, a page, or a few pages, perhaps two minutes/two pages. The goal is to get you to write out the list of interview questions and ask someone how he or she felt or thought about your questions. Purpose: to record a life story if you were recording an entire ½ interview, but you’d only record for a few minutes or ask only a few questions from your list.
• Your list could be 10 to 30 questions. Don’t write more than a few pages of your transcribed interview. How would you turn that interview into a skit or play showing the highlights or significant events of that person’s life? Alternative: Write about a historic person or your own ancestor’s life in a past generation.
Method of Instruction

Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.

Lesson or Week # 9
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 321-348, (read once more to review the questions and techniques on pages 210-222).
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss and research how to use genealogy as social history for playwrights
• Discuss and research how to open a home-based online business producing family history training videos or plays/skits/monologues based on life stories, social history, personal history, events, or current issues in the news.
• Alternative Choice for Nonfiction genealogy writers: Learn how to write, design, and publish or save to disc and/or upload online improved annual family newsletter.
• Discuss and research how to make and preserve a time capsule for family history resources.
• Discuss and research how to rescue old or damaged documents and photos, diaries, and books.

•Assignments Due

Select your own best questions to emphasize and ask when interviewing people for life story highlights and significant events. Or create genealogy fiction by making up questions and imaginative answers in a mock interview that could become an outline for an actual play or dialogue in a short story based on history, genealogy, or family/ancestry experiences and events.

Write a short piece, one to two pages, on how to preserve and save old photos and documents.
Alternative Assignment Choice: Write a section from your annual family newsletter emphasizing questions and answers as if in an interview or do an actual interview for an annual family newsletter article. Writing assignments are due each week along with the short chapter readings. Textbook is in relatively large print and easy to read.
Method of Instruction Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives. Students will be emailed a list of more than 1,000 action verbs and information on how to write, design, and publish compelling family newsletters.

Lesson or Week # 10
Topics/Reading Ethno-Playography , Pages 1-146 (ethnographic play)
Objectives By the end of this lesson, the student should be able to:
• Discuss and research how to write the ethnographic play
• Discuss and research how to write realistic dialogue in a play about genealogy, family history, personal history, life stories, and significant life story-related events from history, current events, social issues, folklore, or ethnographic settings.
• Discuss and research how to write a performable monologue based on someone’s life story or your own memoirs.
• Your goal by the 10th week is to determine what genre of writing you’ll most likely use when applying genealogy resources to creative writing. You’ll decide if you are more comfortable with fiction, true life stories, skits, plays, and drama, or essays, articles, and how-to pieces.
• You’ll be able to decide whether you want to approach family history, personal history, oral history or genealogy and ancestry studies as a writer of magazine features and how-to articles on genealogy research techniques or find out whether you are more interested in pursuing your focus on writing true life stories, memoirs, biographies, fiction, novels, plays, skits, docudrama, or multimedia, or publishing other people’s life stories as gift books, or writing your own memoirs.
• Explore where to market and or promote your life story experiences or genealogy articles. Resources and lists of genealogy and memoirs publications or book publishers will be emailed to you or posted on a Web site.
Assignments Due Write a sample page of dialogue from a play, monologue, or skit emphasizing ethnographic or genealogy-related/family history related themes or questions and answers as dialogue. Email the page of dialogue or questions and answers. Just a page of writing is sufficient.

In a real interview, the dialogue would run 15-30 pages recorded and transcribed as oral history, which would require weeks of preparation. So one page of dialogue in the form of questions and answers is fine for this course for the last week of class. You can expand the page on your own with more questions as you record and write life stories of whomever you interview in the future, should you choose genealogy journalism or creative genealogy writing in various genres from playwriting to novels and stories or true life experiences.

Method of Instruction

Online and by email. Student sends written assignments by email for mentoring, suggestions for improvement (such as keeping sentences short, paragraphs short, and using synonyms instead of clichés, using action verbs instead of adverbs or adjectives.

Types of Communication

Online course: Communication also occurs within weekly course forums.