Oral+History




 * Directions: ** // As a team, you will be responsible for compiling the information below about your inquiry strategy. Next week, your group will provide a 5-6 minute overview of your strategy for the class. //

** 1. Name and Description of your strategy (mention any variations of your strategy as well): **

Oral History. A collection of information that has been collected orally, via interviews, storytelling, audio, etc.

** 2. Inquiry Process associated with your strategy: **

Process would be finding people who can offer first-hand information and asking them appropriate questions having to do with the topic at hand, and then summarizing it into a product of written work.

** 3. Description of the Product or Products resulting from the inquiry process associated with or resulting from it. Be sure to address how technology is or might be connected to the process or product related to the strategy, as well as the composing and/or publishing processes. **

The product would touch on a certain time or place, having been collected from interviews. Interviews can be conducted not only face-to-face, but also through emails, Skype, audio recording, or video recording. The work can be noticed by publishers by posting online to a blog or forum, or by self-publishing and self-marketing.


 * 4. Descriptions of Examples and Links to examples when possible (when you include a link to an example, provide a brief annotation / description of the example -- not just a link): **

[|The Foxfire Book] is a work edited by middle school teacher Eliot Wigginton, but written by his class, who interviewed older friends and family members about things like "Building a Log Cabin" or "Snake Lore".

[|Sitting on the Courthouse Bench] is an oral history of the city of Grundy, Virginia, edited by Dr. Lee Smith, which she made with her high school students. Grundy was her hometown, and they created a history of their town through only interviews with older members of their town.

[|Our American: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago]is a work by LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman, two high school aged young men from Chicago's Ida B. Wells housing project, in which they tell their own story and others in their struggle for survival.

** 5. Resources located and consulted related to your strategy (both hard copy and links): **

http://www.oralhistory.org/

The Foxfire Approach Core Practices handout -

Smart Teachers Handout on Sitting on the Courthouse Bench: An Oral History of Grundy, Virginia -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_history

http://www.amazon.com/Our-America-Death-South-Chicago/dp/0671004646


 * ADDITIONAL KEY RESOURCES FROM DR. Y: **

- Edutopia Website on Oral History Projects: []

- edTechTeacher Website on the Best Oral History Websites: []

- MSU HNET List of Linked Digital Oral History Projects: []

** 6. [Optional] 1 or 2 additional inquiry-based learning strategies we like, value, want to try, have experienced in a positive way, etc. (name and describe briefly): **