Sacha Muller and Laura Wolff
Article: Walbert, K. (2004). Oral History Projects. National Council for the Social Studies, Number E1.
| Title: Oral histories |
| Grade Level: 2nd & 3rd |
| Content Areas: History |
| Learning Objective: SWBAT come up with a short list of related, open-ended questions to ask during an oral history interview. Learning Target: Skill |
| EALR’s Social Studies – History 2.1.1 Benchmark 1- locate, gather, and process information from a variety of sources, including photographs, drawings, artifacts, oral accounts, and documents. 2.2.1 Benchmark 1 – organize and record information |
Assumptions: Students have worked in groups and are able to communicate effectively in groups. They are able to read directions, write and have family members to interview. (Alternatives can be given for students who don’t have grandparents or family members available to interview, such as an older person who works in the school, a neighbor, etc.)
Materials: historical picture book, paper, pencils, thinking caps ;), poster paper, pens to write on posters, chalkboard space
Procedures:
Introduction: Read the students a picture book about history, or grandparents telling a story. (For example, the story Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, by Deborah Hopkinson, or other books about the underground rail road, or the 1950’s or 60’s when their grandparents were alive.) After reading ask questions about how someone might get information about the history in the book. Someone might suggest asking someone that knows. (If the students don’t bring up this point say, “Could we ask someone who lived during that time period?”
Asking someone about a specific time in their past is called doing an Oral History. It means that they are telling you their view of what happened in the past. We are going to start working on doing oral history interviews with someone in our family. To do Oral History interviews you have to ask open-ended questions. Does anyone know what that means?
It means they are questions that do not have yes and no answers. They require more detail. An oral interview is also better if all of the questions are on the same topic and they relate to each other.
Today we are going to work on how to create questions that we could use in an interview for an oral history.
The teacher models open-ended questioning.
I am going to model for you what a bad interview might look like. I will play both parts, the interviewer and the person being interviewed.
Were things different when you were a child? (Yes.)
Did you like baseball? (No.)
Did you like pizza? (Yes.)
What made this not an open-ended interview? (The person could answer all the questions with a Yes or No response. The questions were on different topics and weren’t related to each other. Teacher writes on the board and quickly reviews: Good questions: 1) Open-ended (ask more than Yes or No); 2) Relate to the topic
Now I am going to model a good interview for you. (Teacher brings out poster paper with FOOD written at the top and the following questions underneath)
What foods did you like as a child?
Who did the cooking in your family?
What is different about the way people cook today compared to when you were a
child?
What made this a good open-ended interview, do you think? (All the questions were about the same topic and they related to each other)
There are lots of questions I could ask someone about their childhood, but in this particular interview I focused on asking questions about food. It’s a good interviewing skill to be able to ask questions that will have detailed answers. It will make our Oral Histories much more interesting!
Next, bring out 5 poster papers with the following topics written on them (Family, Food, Shelter, Vocations, Communication). Introduce the topics and discuss their meanings. Briefly brainstorm as a class ideas for questions you could ask someone about their childhood or their past for each topic. Write these “subtopics” in the margins of the poster or on the top for students to reference)
Next, divide the students up into 5 groups. Give each group a topic poster: Family, Food, Shelter, Vocations, Communication. Then have each group come up with relevant, open-ended, related interview questions about their topic, reminding them they could use the “subtopics” for help as well as the questions written on the board. Pass out 5 different colored markers to each group and have each student choose a color to write on the poster with. Have the students write their name in their colored marker somewhere on the poster so that you can tell that everyone contributed to the activity. Remind students that they need to work together to come up with at least five questions, one for each person in the group. Check with your team first before writing the question on the poster to make sure it is an open-ended question and that it relates to the topic. (Remind them that this criterion for “Good Questions” is written on the board.)
Assessment:
Have students turn in their posters with their written questions. Students will be evaluated on the question they wrote based on: 1) its relevancy to the topic and other questions and 2) on its open-endedness (it wasn’t a Yes or No question).
*Further Suggested Lessons:
After this lesson students can choose a topic (Family, Food, Communications, Shelter, or Vocations) and record the suggested questions from the student-made posters to use in their oral history interview. Students can conduct the interview and write it into a paragraph form or keep it in the interview format. Students could draw a picture to accompany their Oral History project.