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HERSTORIES Classroom Project

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HERSTORIES Classroom Project


Objective:

Conduct an oral history project in your classroom.

What is that?

An oral history gathers a person's spoken memories of her life. Women have played an important role in shaping this country, and by conducting an oral history, students can see how women's roles have changed over the years and what life was like during an earlier historical period.

Curriculum Area:

Social Studies, for individual or group,

Time:

You will need a month or more.

Materials:

The Internet
Digital Camera
Tape Recorders
Presentation Software


Procedure:

Part I: Off the Computer

1. Have each student select a woman to interview. This woman can be a parent, grandparent, neighbor, teacher, or contact your local senior center.

Decide who to interview.
Learn what makes a good interview.
Contact the person you want to interview.
Decide what questions do you want to ask.

2. Brainstorm interview questions with the whole class or go to and choose sample questions

3. Have students contact the person they would like to interview and schedule a time for the interview.

4. Conduct the interview, either in person or on the telephone. Students may either write down the responses to the questions or record the interview on tape or digital recorder.

5. After the interview is complete, take a picture of the person being interviewed with the digital camera.

Part II: On the Computer

6. Group students into groups of four.

7. Together, in each group, have students review the collected information and write a short biography (one - two paragraphs or more depending on age) based on the responses.

8. Students will then use these responses to create a group slide show.

9. Each student is required to complete one slide. Each slide should contain the picture of the person selected for the interview and the short biography. Each group will have a four-person slide show.

10. When all of the slides are complete, you can print them out and create an oral "herstory" book that can be copied for all of the interviewees. You could also have an oral "herstory" party where students present their slide show for all the interviewees and the class.

Resources:

Oral history can take the form of audio, video or multimedia storytelling with sounds and photos. What's important is that you begin recording the stories of people important to you — family members, loved ones, friends and community members who have done something interesting, or even remarkable.

A lesson for conducting an oral history

Family Oral history using Digital Tools

Story Corps

Extension:

Ask interviewees for old pictures that they have. Students can scan these pictures for use in their presentations.