Leisure
Essay Question:
Based on the way people in your family have fun, would you say
that differences or commonalities across generations are more
significant? (In other words, what do leisure activities say
about your family and how it has changed over time?) Be sure to
locate your family in time by providing historical context (such
as dates) for each generation.
To support your argument, get some family stories about leisure
activities. The following questions should elicit family stories
that will be useful to you. Composing your own questions might be
even more successful, especially if you base those questions on
your knowledge of your family chronology and history.
- When your informant was a child, did he/she ever sneak away
from school or chores to have fun? What did she do?
- What did your informant's parents do when they weren't
working?
- How did your informant's family celebrate birthdays?
- What is the first movie your informant remembers seeing? Did
any particular movie make an impression on him when he was
young?
- Has your informant ever written to, or met, a movie star or an
author or another famous person?
- Did your informant ever perform to entertain others (by
singing, dancing, acting, etc.)? What were the circumstances,
and what convinced her to do it?
More general questions for further conversation:
- What was the best gift your informant ever gave? What was the
best gift he ever received?
- What was your informant's favorite toy as a child?
- Can your informant recommend a particular movie that really
captures life when she was young?
- What is your informant's favorite book? movie? play? game?
- If your informant won the lottery or received a huge
inheritance, how would it change his life? Would his parents or
children give different answers to that question?