Curriculum

The first time we conducted a full blown oral history project was 1999 [we continued until 2004], and we learned a lot from our mistakes. We greatly underestimated the time it would take. We should have started the first day of the semester in order for the work to be spread out over the entire semester. Our original estimate of four weeks was not realistic.

We also discovered that many of our interviewees could not answer many of the questions because they were too young when the move took place, although Dr. Lebron, who moved to the mainland when he was four, interpreted the questions more broadly than other interviewees (see Dr. Lebron's interview). We then required that the subject be a minimum of 15 years old when the move occurred.

It was very difficult to keep track of the equipment and the progress of the students: who had the tape recorders and cameras [see the camera difficulties, below], who had turned in the tapes, who had done the transcripts, who had converted the transcripts to HTML, ready to upload to the web site. The grid below helped keep the activities organized.

Name

Take
Kit

Return Kit

Interview

Pict

Type

Disk

Tape

HTML

Intro

Edit

Upload

Test

Jones, Tom

Smith, Mary

At the beginning of the project, we invited an oral history expert from Temple University, in Philadelphia, to explain what oral history is and to help the students develop questions to ask in an interview. Having a guest from a university stressed the importance of the project - and in turn, the students worked very conscientiously. In the session, it was important to create open-ended questions, not ones that would elicit one word answers. The students responded enthusiastically and came up with questions that worked well. We used the original set of questions throughout the project but students are encouraged to add questions they felt necessary.

After we had constructed the questions, we did a group interview in the library with Dr. Lebron, our school's former principal, who was born in Puerto Rico. The students asked the questions. Dr. Lebron told wonderful stories about the differences between the island and the mainland, what it was like in the rural part of the Puerto Rico, and some of the difficulties he faced growing up in Philadelphia. He spoke for an hour and a half, but the students were engrossed in his words. We felt that this group effort was a good demonstration of how an interview should go.

The next step was transcribing the interview - to our surprise, it took 12 hours. Not wanting to inflict this on the students, we asked them to transcribe the best five to ten minutes of their interviews though many did much more than that.

The students then did their individual interviews, sharing the equipment (cassette recorders and disposable cameras). In transcribing the interview they knew they had to be accurate in their transcriptions from the tape and in their formatting in order for the excerpts to make sense to their readers.

In several sessions with a web master, the students learned how to convert their interviews to HTML and scan the photos of their subjects.

Two preliminary exercises helped shape the work. Using a photo analysis guide, the students closely examined photographs taken during the Great Depression for content. They also read excerpts of oral history interviews from the American Memory Collection and did mock interviews with the people in the photos.

We felt the project was very successful (see Our Accomplishments). Beyond the experience of completing a major project, many of our students were changed by actually talking to an adult and listening. They learned about past events in their family histories and viewed the stories with the seriousness that we treated the project. I'm happy to say it became considerably more than just a grade to them.

Although at times the team of teachers was overwhelmed with carrying out a project on top of our normal teaching and other work, there was agreement that we would - and did - repeat the project, because of the students' success. We had wanted to celebrate at the end of the school year with student presentations to the families and interviewees, but just could not get to it organized with the crush of end-of-year activities. However, we plan to open the year with a festive event. Further, we plan to publish the interviews at a community press at Temple University. [This never happened.]

The project continued and each year and we added more interviews until we reached a total of 194.

For the detailed curriculum, see American Memory.

Cameras: This never worked properly because of the time involved from when the students took the camera to when it was returned and the roll of 24 pictures was used up, it was difficult if not impossible to identify the people in the shot. We eventually abandoned this part of the effort and virtually all the pictures in the site were provided by the interviewer or interviewee. Care had to be taken so that the shots were returned.

Today, with the proliferation of digital cameras, this would not be a problem.

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