The Oral History Project: Connecting Students to Their Community, Grades 4-8

The Oral History Project is a publication whose time has come. At a time when fill-in-the-blank exercises, short answer assessments, and left-brain thinking is the vogue, The Oral History Project says, "Wait a minute, what about long thinking and right-brain activity?" Can there be anything more valuable than that . . .?
- Donald H. Graves

You've heard "Buy local" and "Think global, act local." Now here's a stirring take on the idea for classroom teachers: Learn local. With the Oral History Project you can help your students do just that, interviewing members of the surrounding community and creating a final project that combines crucial reading, writing, speaking, questioning, and listening skills into a powerful, literacy-based learning experience.

The Oral History Project is a complete guide to a proven, effective oral history project that will motivate and engage your students, connect them to their community, and teach them valuable, lifelong skills. Your kids will sharpen their language arts abilities and uncover new competencies as they:

• select an interviewee and compose questions that generate great stories
• build background knowledge on their subject's life through traditional and Web-based research methods
• find primary sources and artifacts to build connections between interviewer and interviewee
• conduct the interview
• write a feature article that documents and shares the subject's oral history
• write a personal memoir from the person's point of view
• assemble all the parts into a cohesive oral and visual presentation
• create an original piece of research.

In addition, The Oral History Project includes a CD that can be used by individual teachers or staff developers to become familiar with the essential components of the project. It demonstrates how this multidimensional learning experience works in the classroom and also contains sample projects from the authors' home state and communities.

Immerse your students in the curriculum and the community in an exciting new way. Read The Oral History Project and find out why the time has come to "Learn local."