Exploring Community Through Local History: Oral Stories, Landmarks and Traditions

Teacher's Guide

Procedure

Possible teaching options are noted with individual activities.

1. Introduce students to the American Life Histories collection. Students read the Special Presentation of the collection and prepare to discuss questions about the reading. For additional resources for teaching from the American Life Histories, see the lesson Using Oral History.

2. View California Gold #206 video to see how interviews are conducted. Guide the students' viewing by emphasizing the interview process, and noting the types of people interviewed and the types of questions asked. Good examples to discuss include the Los Angeles Airport restaurant interviews of architect, manager, waitress, customers and passersby. Note that open-ended rather than yes/no questions get more detailed responses. For additional resources about types of interview questions, see the lesson Learning About Immigration Through Oral History, particularly the activities on Identifying Open/Closed Questions and Rewriting Closed Questions. (Teacher option: the Federal Writer's Project: Interviews Excerpts may be used to supplement or to replace the video to show examples of how to structure the interview questions.)

3. Discuss the types of local landmarks, traditions and customs that could be project subjects, such as a plaque commemorating WW II veterans or a mural showing a state or local event. Decide in advance whether students will work alone, with a partner or with a small group; and whether to limit the number of projects on a particular landmark or tradition. Allow students to self-select a subject.

4. Assign students to take pictures (preferably digital) of traditional customs, activities or landmarks for their project as homework.

5. Provide access to books, materials, pictures, and artifacts from the school library to gain insight into the community's past.

6. Have students visit the local public library and work with primary documents from the local history collection.

7. Ask students to submit a plan for their interviews, including specific questions and possible candidates for the interview, for peer or teacher review before conducting their interviews. Students might benefit from a reminder to form open-ended questions and a review of interview "etiquette". Possible interview candidates for a landmark might include people who work, visit, shop, or eat at the site, or other passersby. Students conduct interviews, taking notes. Students write a report of the interview, which should be evaluated based on the number and variety of people interviewed, the types of questions developed, and the types of responses elicited.

8. Teach students how to combine their pictures and text in a multimedia presentation. The presentation might be developed in applications like Microsoft Word, Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft PowerPoint, Inspiration or as a Web page. HPRTEC's Project Poster Web site provides a tool for creating quick and easy Web presentations.

9. Students share their presentations with the class. Presentations should include an explanation of how interviews were conducted, and what the student learned about the community. Class members write a summary and a critique of each presentation. (Teacher option: provide guidelines for the critiques, or generate them with the class before beginning the presentations. Students may evaluate all presentations, or be assigned particular presentations.)

Evaluation

Use the Project Rubric [PDF/7k] to evaluate each student's performance, or develop a rubric with the students.

1. Students demonstrate understanding of interviewing techniques and oral traditions through a written essay about their interview and through their multimedia project.

2. Students successfully prepare a multimedia presentation.

3. Students present their local history project to the class in a clear and informative manner in order that other students in the class can write a summary and a critique of their presentation.

4. Students submit a self-evaluation clarifying what they learned and what materials and experiences were valuable in learning about local history.

Extension

The high school library will store the students’ work to be used as a resource by future classes in American History, language arts classes, or social studies classes. Web projects will be shared on the school Web site.

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