TITLES:
Listen, Recor d, Remember; Family Oral History Project
Or
In Their Own Words; Family Oral History Project
WRITTEN BY:
Melinda Crimmins
GRADE LEVEL(S):
8-12
TIME ALLOTMENT: Approximately 5-7 50 minute class periods with students conducting
interviews outside of class.
OVERVIEW: This lesson integrates personal writing, research, regional history and technology.
After reading a short memoir and reviewing the genre, students will create their own memoir
along with memoirs of family members. Students select a family member to interview, craft a set
of interview questions, create a written document (essay or transcript) of the interview and
electronically publish it along with an audio oral history.
SUBJECT MATTER: English/Language Arts
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1.)
Using multiple sources of information students will build literacy skills and gain an
appreciation of the importance of narrative and history in their lives by creating their own
personal memoir and interviewing family members.
2.)
Students shall demonstrate understanding of the techniques and process of digital story
telling and digital recording of oral histories.
STANDARDS:
NCTE/IRA NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS
3.Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on
their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of
other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound–letter
correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
4.Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to
communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
5.Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements
appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
6.Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media
techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
7.Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems.
They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts,
people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
8.Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks,
video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
11.Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy
communities.
12.Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning,
enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).
NORTH DAKOTA STANDARDS
English - Grade(s): 7
Standard: 7.3.2. Standard 3: Students engage in the writing process.: Narrative Writing: Produce narrative writing
e.g., short story, poetry, drama
Standard: 7.3.4. Standard 3: Students engage in the writing process.: Prewriting: Use strategies to write for
different audiences and purposes e.g., informative, narrative, persuasive
Standard: 7.4.2. Standard 4: Students engage in the speaking and listening process.: Planning for an
Audience/Purpose: Use supporting materials for topic development e.g., research, personal experience, literature,
interview
English - Grade(s): 8
Standard: 8.3.1. Standard 3: Students engage in the writing process.: Informative Writing: Compose informative
writing, e.g., research, biographies, autobiographies, news articles, interviews
English - Grade(s): 11
Standard: 11.1.2. Standard 1: Students engage in the research process.: Accessing Information: Evaluate and
incorporate information from primary sources e.g., interviews and surveys
MINNESOTA STANDARDS
English Standard:
I. Reading and Literature: The student will read and understand grade-appropriate English language Text.
C. Comprehension: Standard: The student will understand the meaning of texts, using a variety of
strategies, and will demonstrate literal, interpretive, inferential and evaluative comprehension.:
3. Use knowledge of narrative and expository text structures and subject-specific texts to
summarize content.
D. Literature: Standard: The student will actively engage in the reading process and read, understand,
respond to, analyze, interpret, evaluate and appreciate a wide variety of fiction, poetic and nonfiction texts.:
2. Identify and analyze various genres and subgenres as forms with distinct characteristics and
purposes.
MEDIA COMPONENTS – VIDEO AND/OR WEB:
The Nuts & Bolts to Creating Podcasts: pdf
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/printouts/podcasts-nuts-bolts-creating-30311.htmlPodcast
Digital storytelling
Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir.
http://www.mnhs.org/collections/oralhistory/oralhistory.htm
Autistic Basketball Manager's 20 Point Game http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6cOp6EDFlI
Everybody Has a Story Flashback: Veteran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIC4v2rJjdY
Modern Memoirs, Inc.
Writing and/or editing, design, publishing for discerning clients.
www.ModernMemoirs.com
Sources for Audio:
The FreeSound Project: http://www.freesound.org/
Flash Kit Sound Loops: http://www.flashkit.com/loops/
Flash Kit Sound FX: http://www.flashkit.com/soundfx/
A1 Free Sound Effects: http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/noflash.htm
Documentary Sound.[http://wlt4.home.mindspring.com/adventures/documentary.htm].
American Radio Works.
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/
History and Politics Out Loud.
http://www.mediafestival.org/old_site/copyright_chart.pdf
MATERIALS:
Memoirs to Consider:
Gates, Henry Louis Jr. Colored People
Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted
Wolff, Tobias. This Boy’s Life.
Russell Baker, Growing Up
Jim Barnes, On Native Ground
Lan Cao, Monkey Bridge
Jimmy Carter, An Hour Before Daylight
Stephen Church, The Guiness Book of Me
Bill Clinton, My Life
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Annie Dillard, An American Childhood
Mark Doty, Firebird
Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Helen Freemont, After Long Silence
James Frey, A Million Little Pieces
Elizabeth Gold, Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity
Brendan Halpin, Losing My Faculties—A Teacher's Story
Adam Harmon, Lonely Soldier
Stephen King, On Writing
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts
Annie Lamont, Bird by Bird
Beryl Markham, West with the Night
Nathan McCall, Makes Me Wanna Holler
Frank McCourt, Teacher Man and Angela’s Ashes
William Alexander Percy, Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter’s Son
Ruth Reichl, Garlic and Sapphires, Comfort Me With Apples, and Tender at the Bone
Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
Elie Wiesel, Night
PREP FOR TEACHERS:
1.) Check out or gather digital recording devices for student use.
2.) Make copies of the handouts for the lesson:
Receiver of Memory Interview Questions
Transcribing an Oral History
Pod Casting
Digital Recording
The Interview
Copy of Published Memoir
Permission to Post
INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY - SETTING THE STAGE:
MATERIALS: Published memoirs to read.
SESSION ONE:
1. Discuss with students the significance of stories in history. Explain that stories are one way to
gain wisdom and insight. Stories can be told in many different ways: acted out on stage, in film, or
on television, sung in a musical or an opera, written in a favorite book, or told orally. Few of us
realize the richness of our own family history that can be extracted from those of our older relatives
yet living. Ask students if they have ever told stories around the dinner table at family holidays.
Hold class discussion about family stories and traditions. Explain that for many cultures, oral
tradition is a way of linking the past to the future.
2. Tell students they will be completing a family oral history in which they will be conducting family
interviews. Inform students that they will be starting with their own memoir and oral history.
3. Read a few short memoirs (list provided). Or this could be used as a culminating project after
reading the novel, The Giver or Night, both of which emphasize the importance and wisdom of
transferring memories from generation to generation.
LEARNING ACTIVITIES:
MATERIALS: one piece blank paper, writing utensil, computer with word processing
SESSION TWO:
Personal Memoir/ Oral History:
1. Tell students they will first be creating a personal memoir. Have students engage in personal story
map exercise with folded paper creating 6 quadrants. Each quadrant is to represent a particular time
span ( 5 years). Have students write down two important events that took place during that time
period in their lives as well as one emotion. It works best to keep each sentence to three or four
words. Provide example from own life.
Possible events may be:
- First day of school (e.g., preschool, kindergarten, first grade, middle school, high school) A
special family trip or vacation
- A family event or milestone (birth of a sibling, first car)
- A personal achievement (e.g., first place in a competition)
- A personal loss (parents’ divorce)
2. Discuss with students that upon completion of their personal history map they now have an
outline for their memoir.
3. Have students read their personal history maps and see if any event jumps out at them or enlists a
particularly strong emotion. They may wish to expand further on that specific event. Or have
students go back and write at least two sentences for each event while considering the 5 W’s (Who,
What, Where, Why, When). Distribute the Memoir Rubric. Have students rewrite their memoir
including an introduction using the Rubric as a guide.
SESSION THREE:
MATERIALS:
Handouts - Memoir Rubric, The Interview, Permission to Post, Electronic Publishing
Digital Recording Device
The Interview:
1. Distribute The Interview handout. Explain and discuss each criterion for a successful interview.
Have student look over the interview questions provided and choose at least 15 they would like to
ask their oldest living relative. Discuss the use of the digital recorder or some other digital audio
recording device (mp3 player, ipod, etc.) Inform students they will be conducting an interview with
a relative at least a generation older than themselves, transcribing the interview and posting it
electronically. Distribute a Permission to Post slip. Assign the interview to be completed by two
following class periods.
2. Using digital recording device have students create an audio of their personal memoir.
SESSION FOUR:
Transcription/ Interview Essay:
1. After students have conducted their interview. Distribute the Transcribing an Oral History handout.
Review with class. Have students start working on their transcriptions.
2. Distribute the Electronic Publishing handout. Have students upload their audio of their personal
memoir along with the audio of their interviewee.
3. Have students upload a picture of themselves and their interviewee or some type of visual
representation.
CULMINATING ACTIVITY:
SESSION FIVE:
Evaluate using Memoir Rubric, Interview Essay Rubric or Oral History Rubric. Compile class
memoirs into a community mosaic project and publish to internet, school or local museum
webpage.
CROSS-CURRICULAR ACTIVITY:
History – What are the origins of a favorite family artifact, food, or tradition? When was this item
first introduced in the United States? If originated in the United States, when was it introduced to
other regions of the world? What cultural, ethnic or religious significance does this item have in the
United States or in other regions of the world? Prepare an illustrated report based on your findings.
Include a map that identifies the origins of this item.
Health – Take one family recipe and determine its nutritional value based on an average single
serving size (including amount of calories, sodium, sugar, fats and carbohydrates). Investigate and
experiment with ingredients that might improve the recipe’s health benefits. Prepare a new recipe
based on your findings and address how and why it might be a tasty substitution for the healthconscious. Record an elderly relative reading his/her favorite recipe. Post electronically as a Family
Recipe Book
Science – How have advancements in DNA testing affected the way an individual perceives his or
her identity, family history and/or cultural history? Investigate the current understanding of DNA
testing (how it works, its degree of accuracy and its purposes). Then read the accounts of individuals
who have used it to uncover their pasts. Write a reflection paper that addresses your own feelings
about what you might hope or expect to find in DNA tests.
Technology – Prepare a “How-It-Works” poster of one of the pieces of equipment that were
thought to be “state of the art” from a relative that is at least a generation older than yourself. Post
electronically to school web page.
Fine Arts –
1.)
Design a coat of arms for your family that incorporates elements of your family history. Consult
resources that offer explanations of crest symbols such as:
- Symbols of Heraldry (http://www.digiserve.com/heraldry/symbols.htm)
- Fleur-de-lis Designs (http://www.fleurdelis.com/meanings.htm)
- We Are Multicolored (http://www.wearemulticolored.com/glossary.php).
2.)
3.)
Create a memoir presented as a photographic collage, a painting, or a sculpture. Accompany
your work with an artist’s journal explaining why you have chosen the particular method of
presentation and analyze your own successes and shortcomings.
Create a movie poster representing your family memoirs. Be sure to include a major slogan,
the cast of characters and short characterizations for each cast member.
English/Language Arts Extension 1.)
Write a fairy tale or myth using your family oral histories. How might you make your
characters fantastical, magical and/or inspirational?
2.)
Using your personal story map (step 1: session 2) create a Life Poem. Then read, record and
post it electronically. (This could create a class-wide Life Poem project).
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS:
Compile class memoirs into a community mosaic project and publish to internet, school or
local museum webpage.
STUDENT MATERIALS:
Digital Recording Device, Interview Handout, Transcribing an Oral History Handout, Evaluation Rubrics
(Interview and Personal Memoir), Permission to Post slip/ Electronic Publishing Handout
ASSESSMENTS:
Classroom evaluations, Rubric