Your Hero’s Journey
Social Science/History | Available (Membership Required)
In a hero’s journey, the protagonist goes on a journey, overcomes adversity, and is changed by the experience. Literature is filled with such journeys, but all of us have experienced such journeys in our own lives. In this workshop we will discuss the features of a hero’s journey, write about one of our own hero’s journeys (or a family member’s), and share that story.
It’s no secret that one of my greatest passions in life is family history and writing about life experiences. It all started when Grandma Roen showed me the Norwegian family Bible when I was in my mid-teens. She opened the cover to reveal the name of Grandpa Roen, along with the names of his siblings and parents, as well as their dates of birth and my great-grandparents marriage date. I was instantly hooked, and I’ve been doing research ever since.
Another of my passions is teaching writing, which I have been doing for more than five decades, most recently at Arizona State University. One of the principles that I learned early on is that everyone can learn to write effectively and that there is always something new to learn. I’ve been writing for nearly seven decades and teaching writing for more than five, and I’m still learning.
Anyone who has done much family research has collected lots of names, dates, and places. However, they usually have collected relatively few stories. When my wife (Maureen) and I realized that, we became determined to leave lots of stories for future generations of our family. On the day that our son Nick was born in 1978, we started a daily family journal, and we have written in it every day since then. We have written more than 21,000 pages of journal entries full of stories about our family, as well as some events in the world. Reading an entry from forty-five years ago is like watching a video of what happened that day—all the memories come flooding back. Because I am committed to helping others have their family memories come flooding back, I have developed more than sixty workshops that generate memories about a wide range of life’s experiences with family. Some of those topics include family and food, family photos, heirlooms, holidays, joyous moments, a conversation with an ancestor, family names, gratitude, childhood toys, family lore, humor, love, and dozens more.
Duane Roen
Duane Roen has been tracing his roots since his teenage years, building a database with more than 32,000 ancestors. He and his wife, Maureen Roen, have also been recording their family history since 1978 by writing more than 19,000 daily journal entries on their children and other family members. Combining his professional and personal interests, Duane worked with colleagues to establish courses on writing and recording family history at Arizona State University. He also is founding coordinator of the Project for Writing and Recording Family History in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts at ASU.