Today's Lesson: "This is my Family"

This is my family tree.

Imagine trying to explain how that works to students who are more familiar with structures like this:
The lesson plan for today asked that I draw my family tree on the board and explain the relationships between family members. Are you kidding me? This is an English class, not a soap opera. My students can't handle the truth.

Please understand that I love my family very much and wouldn't trade the diversity of it for the world. But seriously, the white board wasn't big enough for step-grandparents and half-siblings and cousins only by marriage. Not to mention the fact that this is an introductory class... they don't even posess the words that I would have to use to explain the complexity of my family tree.

So I kept it generic and fudged a bit. They were still blown away by the fact that my father has three siblings, I have cousins in the double digits, as well as nieces and nephews.