Oral Histories

For this online assignment, I am asking you to "think" about what you could do for an Oral History project. I am not asking you to develop it any further than to describe what is meant by "oral history" and to describe your plan for how the topic you select could be developed. A summary of the steps you will follow for this assignment include:

What is meant by Oral History?
Select a topic of interest to you.
Plan how you might organize the information so that it could be shared with others.
Make a connection to the ELA and NETS standards.

You can complete this assignment using WORD, Inspiration, PowerPoint, or any other software (not paper/pencil) that is helpful in detailing your project.

Part One--What is meant by Oral History?

You have decided to do an Oral History project with your group of classroom students. In order to do so, you need to find out more information about how to do this type of project. Some questions to get you started are listed below:

What is an Oral History?
How do you collect information?
What types of questions should be asked?
How can the information be shared with others?

Organize your answers to this information using the software format you have selected (i.e. listing, outline, concept map, etc.). To help locate answers to many of these questions, a starting point would be to visit the two sites listed below:

How to Collect Oral Histories
- http://www.42explore2.com/oralhst.htm
One-Minute Guide to Oral Histories
- http://www.youthsource.ab.ca/teacher_resources/oral_minute.html

Part Two--Identify the topic.

What type of oral history project will your class undertake? What will be the topic that is common to the types of oral histories you collect? Think about the community in which you reside or perhaps the community in which you were raised. Since you would want to be able to easily interview any of the people involved, think about a local or regional focus that would be of interest to your class.

Some of the sites in the next section focus on World War II, the Khmer Rouge reign, African-Americans (#1, #2, and #3), and survivors of the Holocaust. These topics are broader in focus, but they will be helpful in seeing and reading the types of information that is shared.

Part Three--How will you present this information?

Think about how you could share this information through a series of web pages that "publishes" the information your class has collected. NOTE--You are not actually creating the web pages, you are simply detailing (i.e. outline, concept map, slides, etc.) what would be on the web pages should you choose to follow through with the project.

In order to get an idea of how other sites have organized and presented their findings, visit some of the locations listed below. As you critique these sites, make notes regarding how the different sites were set up (i.e. presentation, photos, links, table of contents, etc.). Pick out two to three of the sites below that are of interest to you--do not feel the need to visit all of these sites.

Voice Vision: Holocaust Survivor Oral Histories
- http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu/
T. Harry Williams--Center for Oral History
- http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/williams/
IEEE History Center
- http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories.html
Oral Histories Online
- http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/collections/ohonline.html
Oral Histories: Cambodia-Beauty and Darkness
- http://members.aol.com/cambodia/oral_hst.htm
A Shared Experience
- http://www.rice.edu/armadillo/Past/Teach/les2.html
African-American Oral Histories
- http://www.packer.edu/Access/Internal/Students/AbFo/TRIAL.html
Rutgers Oral History Archive of World War II
- http://fas-history.rutgers.edu/oralhistory/orlhom.htm

If you are stumped on how to do the web pages...

If you are not sure how you would set up the web pages that shares the information, then you could use the suggested format in the table below. Remember...you are not actually creating the web pages, you are simply making a plan of how it might be done. In your plan, you will need to provide more specific information that is relevant to your proposed topic.

Page One	Table of Contents Overview of the project Links to other pages that describes your oral history project in more depth Examples (1-2) of types of photos you could include that illustrates your oral history project (i.e. Oral history projects that focus on the Holocaust sometimes have pictures of the Concentration Camp.)
Page Two	Photo Album More pictures that relates to your project. Since this is only your planning stage, you would only list examples of types of pictures that would be related to your project.
Page Three	You would want to interview people to find out what they know about your project, so the different interviews that you will be conducting could be listed on this page. If you developed this project any further (I am only asking you to think about what you could do), then this page would have links to the transcripts from each interview.

Part Four--Standards

Make a note of the ELA and NETS standards that would be reflected within this activity. For the NETS standards for teachers, identify the standards that you had to draw upon in developing this activity. For the standards for students, identify the standards that your students would draw upon if they were to actually complete this oral history project.

Other Resources

Oral History Association--http://www.dickinson.edu/organizations/oha/org_cc.html

Southern Oral History Program--http://www.sohp.org/

Return to Calendar