Oral Histories

My student teacher this year Molly Hazelton has an expertise in Oral History. The past few years, she has collected oral histories of Nuns internationally as an archive librarian. We decided to create a unit for 6th grade students to teach about narratives that may not be recorded in their social studies books.

Looking at 6th grade Social Studies and ELA outcomes-- we collaborated with classroom teachers to create a small unit around oral histories.

Our goals were:

• Students would understand the difference between Primary Sources and Secondary Sources
• Students would understand what and Oral History is
• Students would understand how history is recorded-- whose story is told
• Student would understand that Facts are important and that narratives are too
• Students would learn what makes a good interview question
• Students would write interview questions with a purpose
• Students would practice interviewing each other
• Students would perform interviews to collect immigration stories

Students worked in small groups after a series of lessons to write questions for our interviewees. They came up with a set of questions that we shared with the interviewees in advance. We then used the Voice Memo app on iPads to record our interviews. They are amazing! I am so proud of the work they did.

 **A thank you to Codrina E.-P. for her interview which she wanted shared only with 6th grade classes.