Oral history involves you in thinking about and understanding history and the contemporary world and allows you to bring the cultural and historical experiences of your families directly into the learning process. For our last assignment you are to interview a family member and complete a family history that help you pinpoint where your family’s story has intersected with broader historical events. 

I recommend that you organize their interview around a theme. The person(s) you interview might be a veteran, an immigrant, or an activist. Older people, of course, have longer histories to discuss. Interviewees can be a relative, neighbor, or family friends. Parents or other caregivers are always a possibility.

The class can work together to develop the interview questions in our web ex. I recommend starting with biographical questions and proceeding in chronological order. Students can research major historical events and ask the interviewee about the events. Questions like where were you; what did you experience; what do you think about the event now? It will be interesting to learn what the interviewees think about the world today.

Layer 1: Personal Events. Year(s) he or she was born; attended or graduated from high school or college, married, had children, worked.

Layer 2: Technology and Innovation. Year recent inventions came on the market or the person first acquired one.

Layer 3: Local Events. Major local events that shaped the town, county, or state and impacted on their life.

Layer 4. National Events. Major national events that shaped the country and impacted on their life.

Layer 5. World Events. Major international events that shaped the country and impacted on their life.

Open-ended interviews use prepared questions as starting points to encourage people to tell stories about their past. Sometimes during an interview, students ask all of their prepared questions, sometimes only part of their questions, and sometimes they think of new follow-up questions in the middle of the interview.

 

When my professor at Hoftsra was a student, he interviewed his grandfather. My professor was mostly interested in life during the Great Depression. One of the first questions he asked him was where was he born? His response caught me by surprise. He said, “It depends.” I said Zayde (Yiddish for Grandfather), “What do you mean ‘it depends’?” He said, “It depends on where the border was. Sometimes we were in Austria, sometimes we were in Poland, sometimes we were in Russia.” I also learned that my paternal grandparents had two older children who died from influenza in Europe before World War I, something no one else in my family knew about.

You should take notes and audio- or videotape the interview. When the interview is completed, a student should write up the person’s story either in first or third person. With permission of the interviewee, students can share the tape and their reports. Sometimes interviews are conducted in languages other than English and a student will need to translate the story to share with others.

Outcomes:

You have many options to complete this project:

1) a couple of pages write up of the intereview

2) a keynote- slide show of the write up that includes personal pictures and historic pictures

3) a video of the interview with you summary at the end

4) be creative...any medium you want to get the story across.

 

A Monologue from Stranded

A mini summary: Josephine Russo is fed up with her family and their poor dinner options. Why

do they always want chicken for dinner? Dive deep into Josephine’s story as she reminisces on

how her passion for cooking came to be and why she cannot bear to eat another piece of

chicken.

I’m basically the Theresa Giudice of Essex County. EVERYBODY knows my name.

When you hear “Josephine Russo” around here, you imagine a movie star. To be honest, who

doesn’t want to be me? I know all the hot gossip–I know every mother’s in-depth story of how

they birthed their child, and why they’re currently fighting with their husband. But, ever since

quarantine rolled around, things have been; dry, I mean, I barely get to go outside anymore!

How am I supposed to have my weekly tittle-tattles with my girlfriends at the Greek restaurant

down the street? I can’t whisper in their ears when they’re six feet away!

However, I’ve been spending a bit more time with my family. It’s been pretty nice, I have

to say. Except, for one thing: dinner

​As an Italian girl, I love my grand meals–pastas, pizza,

prosciutto, the whole nine. But for some reason, I can’t get my family to feel the same way! I

mean, my son, Tommy, has refused to eat anything but chicken for the last 3 months. It’s driving

me bonkers. I mean, how many different ways can you make chicken? I would usually never

cook dinner this often, but since we’re stuck inside, I have no choice but to do so. At first, it was

fun; reminiscing of the days I would cook for my grandmother while she would praise me for my

amazing skills. Now, it’s torture: “Mommy, make this!”, “Mommy, I don’t like this! Make me

something else!”

At this point, I’m considering self-isolating and making my husband cook dinner. Lord, have mercy on my stomach!

Aislinn

I'm going to focus on the main concepts of derivatives in order to build the strong foundation needed for the students to be able apply to use differentiation to real life applications. This will be the first topic covered for the seniors.
Jason Sauter

I found that sharing the information/notes first with the students before we met helped tremendously when during our conferences so that I could troubleshoot any questions or go over errors students were making in their assignments. In this way I could correct students without stating who was making the errors.
-Elsa Coelho