have you ever read an author's note at the end of a novel or picture book I'm Mrs defal and I love reading author's notes because they provide interesting facts sometimes these author notes are called an afterward which is where I discovered Christopher Paul Curtis's encouragement at the end of his novel Bud Not Buddy Mr Curtis encourages readers to listen to family members and Friends stories I love to gather stories and learn from people's different experiences people's experiences are similar and different from one generation to another today we will learn one interview strategy for Gathering our families and friends stories to create intergenerational stories intergenerational is a long word let's break up that word into syllables or word Parts interg a Shan I counted seven syllables that's definitely a multi- slabic word a generation is a group of people who were born around the same time our grandparents are one generation our parents are another generation and we are a part of our own generation intergenerational includes the Latin prefix inter which means between and the Latin suffix all which makes the word an adjective so it can be a describing word as a writing teacher my students have shared so many family stories with our writing Community I love reading the dialogue in their stories because when readers hear the conversation the stories come alive the spoken words are the dialogue whenever somebody speaks we see quotation marks around words which tell us when dialogue is taking place I think of this as a smiley face with dimples whatever is spoken is framed with quotation mark I'm a teacher in Dearborn Michigan many people who live in Dearborn have roots in arabic speaking countries did you know Arabic is the national language in 25 countries in the Middle East or Northern Africa many of my students are bilingual which means they can speak more than one language when my bilingual students write their stories I encourage them to write the dialogue and provide some specific details in their first language one of my former students Mrs Joan NABA speaks Arabic and English when she shares stories with her family she speaks Sometimes using Arabic sometimes English and sometimes both languages in the same sentence if you and your family are also bilingual I bet you can relate I am excited to meet with Mrs nabha and two of her daughters at the mardigian library at the University of Michigan Dearborn Mrs Napa's daughters are talking with her to learn about a favorite moment with their Je which means grma in Arabic many arabic speaking cultures say the word grma differently because of different dialects depending on where a family is from they may use the name City Teta bib or judu there can be even more ways to say grandma in Arabic isn't that fascinating let's listen in mama what's an early memory of you and Tata from your childhood oh one of my early favorite memories is when tataa read to me and your Hollows she'd buy picture books and read to us all the time she made a part of our daily routine would say y NRA and let's pick out stories and read together and she would have a few books already laid out for us okay I'd love to do that too you know how much I love to buy books and read to read them to you and your sisters all the time he what is a memory of you and T laughing together great question s so laughing is something we did a lot when I was younger so the stories are endless all over one time kataa was tried to teach me how to cook our favorite traditional dish when I was a teenager called what I remember we were standing in the kitchen and Tanta was teaching me how to properly roll the grap leaves I had to edit enough Ash not to over stop it but also enough to fill it well the hash was made of rice and ground beef and P and plenty of freshly squeezed homet she'd say lean try your BS trying to keep the ser serous look on her face it's quite the funny story because I wasn't always the easy to work with so I kept over stuffing it and I had the hardest time M they were always too loose tat to spent half the time laughing at me and you know Tata when she starts laughing at something really funny it's hard to get her to stop tears were rolling down her face it actually took me years to learn how to make it and I still prefer someone else to do it but memories like this make my heart full every time I enjoy a favorite dish like what because I remember the moments I shared with tataa in preparing it or attempting to it I enjoyed listening to this conversation with Mrs NAA and her daughters today we have the power to collect our own families and friends intergenerational stories I encourage you to ask the people you love questions about their experiences through the power of interviews or simply through conversation we learn from individuals voices and experiences you never know where your next writing idea might come from collect oral stories and choose to write them down such stories are intergenerational Treasures