Oral History Project: Collecting the Life Stories of Another Generation

This is a multi-step project that would fit best into an English or Social Studies type of class. The project is asking students to act as Anthropologists and collect the oral history of a person who is at least 40 years older than the students.

Skills involved:

- Students find their own participants
- Each project is extremely unique
- Students must prepare before collecting their history by submitting 5 introduction questions
- Students practice taking notes while a person is speaking
- Students focus on someone else's stories and memories rather than the classic kind of writing that focuses on the students' experiences.
- The project requires students to transform their notes into a narrative
- After completing their history collection and narrative, students must write a reflection on their experiences
- Optional: students could present/read their narrative

In this file:

- Very detailed directions for students (and the teacher) on how to complete the assignment split into 5 parts.
- An example of a completed narrative
- Grading for each section of the project
- Detailed rubric for the narrative

I have given this assignment to many students over the years. One of the best parts of the project is that students really get the opportunity to learn about another generation. Most of my students tend to collect their history from a grandparent.

Once the students finish their assignment, one of the common comments in the student reflections is: "I realized how little I knew about my own grandma. Until I did this project, I never really thought about what life was like for her when she was my age."