I just finished with some small cosmetic additions to my presentation. I was thinking of the possibilities of a similar project in my classroom and thought that I could present it as a type of personal history, family background, a sort of "Where do I come from?" project. For a younger age group, perhaps elementary, you could stick with the basics of a country report and include such elements as geography, culture and religion, recent history, past history, and so on. To make it more relevant to them I would ask that they be able to identify a reason for their choice of this country. An example would be my great-great-grandfather was from Ireland, so I chose Ireland for my country. For the older students, high school and middle school, I would add the personal elements of trying to find documents or visible proof of an ancestor in a distant time. As far as correlating this to Indiana's Language Arts standards it would be simple to devise an entire project that also targets the specific skills. I could incorporate all of Standard 2: Comprehension and Analysis of Nonfiction and Informational Text, as well as standards four and five, Writing: Processes and Features and Writing: Applications. I suppose like most students I wasn't very happy with the project to begin with; I perceived it as something to occupy my time. It was only with reflection and assessment of my own work that I was able to see the value in what I accomplished. In my teaching career, I sometimes fall into the mode of teaching a curriculum because it is what I have taught in the past, or maybe because it was easier. I can understand now how much more potent my lessons could be if I were to engage the students on a personal level. I know this sounds so Utopian, and perhaps it is, but someone had to think of Utopia to begin with.