Writing About Family

Writing About Family

Social Science/History | Available (Membership Required)

12535 W. Smokey Dr. Surprise, AZ 85378 United States
Zoom
8/24/2026 (one day)
10:00 AM-12:00 PM MST (Arizona) on Mon

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Writing About Family

Social Science/History | Available (Membership Required)

Family photographs offer rich opportunities for writing about family history. For this session, please bring one or more family photos—either a physical copy or a mental image. Duane Roen will introduce several writing activities for seeing the descriptive and narrative details found in those photos .

  • 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 21,000 pages of 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. Duane has been teaching writing for more than five decades, most recently at Arizona State University. One of the principles that he learned early on is that everyone can learn to write effectively and that there is always something new to learn. He has been writing for nearly seven decades and teaching writing for more than five, and he is still learning. 
Duane Roen

Roen, Duane - 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.