Prompts for Developing a Life History - Part I

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Today I am starting a series of 7 posts that will include questions that can be used as prompts to develop a life history. They could be used as:

 

  • A personal assessment of your own life (i.e. your own life history)
  • A structure for initial conversations with someone else to get to know them (i.e. you each answer the question…and discuss further if needed)
  • Interview questions for someone you know fairly well but have gaps in what your know about them (i.e. like a grandparent or parent or a grandchild that has always lived far away

 

You don’t have to use every question and you may think of others you would like to ask as you go through these. Writing or recording the answers will result in a rudimentary life history. Consider embedding pictures of items the supplement the narrative. Eventually you'll want to get it into a form you can easily edit - like a word processor - but you can start out with a tablet/blank book and pen. Sometimes ordinary things can have a lot of meaning (for example - a raggedy baby's blanket that is part of a 'first memory').

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The first series of questions is about your childhood through the completion of your education.

  1. Where and when were you born?
  2. What was your favorite activity as a child?
  3. What is your earliest memory?
  4. Who taught you your numbers and letters?
  5. How much did you know before you went to school? Could you write your name, etc.?
  6. What was your favorite subject in elementary school?
  7. Who helped you with your homework in elementary school?
  8. What was your elementary school classroom/school building like?
  9. What was the most memorable event of elementary school?
  10. Did you play a musical instrument? Do you still play?
  11. What kind of ‘trouble’ did you have as a teenager?
  12. What do you remember the most about high school?
  13. What was your hardest class in high school?
  14. Did you participate in sports in high school? Do you still play?
  15. What extracurricular activities did you participate in during high school and college?
  16. Did you have a job while you were in high school? If so - what did you do?
  17. Do you have friends from high school you still keep in touch with?
  18. Did you go to college?
    • Where?
    • What do you remember the most about college?
    • What was the hardest class for you  in college?
    • How was your college paid for?
    • What did you major in?
    • Did you have a job while you were in college? If so - what did you do?
    • In retrospect, to what extent did you use your college education in your work?
    • Do you have friends from college you still keep in touch with?
  19. What was your first car?
  20. Did you ever travel by yourself prior to college? If so - where, how, when?
  21. Did your family take vacations? If so - where did you go/what did you do?

Later parts to this series will focus on favorites, habits, family and friends, the present and the future. The segments will come out about once a week.