Oral
History Project 
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q 1. Get Background Information: Before doing an interview always familiarize yourself with the history of the topic being interviewed about. Hopefully your teacher will provide class time and readings so that you have at least a general background on the topic. Your interview will be much better if you know about the chronology, themes, people, and key issues of the period. q 2. Determine who should be interviewed: Only interviews with people who have First-hand knowledge of an event, such as eyewitnesses or participants, count as primary sources. History professors or other scholars or descendants may be helpful because they provide different perspectives or insights into the event or topic being studied. These are excellent secondary sources, but should not be considered to be oral history. Following are some suggestions from NHD on how to find people to interview. · If their experiences are appropriate for the topic, older family members, neighbors, or family friends could make suitable interviewees. · For specialized topics, your students could check with special-interest organizations. Local historical societies or museums are often good places to go for referrals; their staffs usually have extensive local connections and a good idea of who would be willing to help. For military-related topics, students could ask the local VFW or American Legion Posts for names of members who might be willing to be interviewed. · Try asking the reference librarian at the local public library for ideas about who to interview. · Ask people you meet in the course of doing your research that might be willing to be interviewed. · Find historians at nearby universities to interview as secondary sources. Many universities have names and phone numbers listed by department on school web pages. q 3. Practice Interviewing: Writing good questions, listening well, and being a flexible interviewer takes practice. Stage a mock interview known as the oral history fish bowl. Have the class brainstorm questions about a specific topic (e.g. WWII). Then the teacher can role-play the interviewee (WWII vets). Have several students conduct the interview, using the questions the class prepared and asking appropriate follow-up questions. Then during the debriefing have the students determine which questions worked well and which did not. Another practice activity would be to divide the class into pairs and ask them to write a brief paper explaining a major turning point in their partner’s life. Have them write questions and then interview each other, basing their papers on the interviews. Ask them to list what other sources they might be able to find about this topic (interviews with other people, family letters, diaries, photographs, church or school records, newspaper stories, etc.)
Step 2: Preparing for the Interview Step 3: Conducting the Interview |
