WORKSHOPS FOR SCHOOL AUDIENCES
STUDENTS AS COMMUNITY HISTORIANS
The following workshops may be presented individually, or may become components of a residency in oral history. They can be adapted to suit students from 3rd to 12th grade, and to address learning objectives in social studies, language arts/reading, and sciences.
Workshops and residencies in oral history can be effectively introduced with performances such as “Family Stories Are History!” or “Burnt into Memory: The Story of the Brownfield Fire.”
THE ART OF INTERVIEWING
This interactive workshop leads students through the specialized process of interviewing, emphasizing listening and follow-up skills, developing open-ended questions, and eliciting stories. They will learn how to step into the world-view of others, and they will improve skills in observation, interpersonal communication, and follow-through.
DESIGNING A COMMUNITY HISTORY PROJECT
Community history projects built around oral history interviews will enhance students’ understanding of and interest in history, improve their questioning, reasoning, and research skills, and boost abilities in organizing, writing, and proofreading. This workshop can lay the foundation for designing individual projects, group projects, and/or whole-class enterprises, emphasizing the skills students will need in order to plan and take responsibility for the entire process. We cover all phases, including topic choice, advance preparation and research, selection of informants, strategies for audio and video recording of interviews, indexing, transcription, and management of recordings, finding additional sources and artifacts, and planning of final presentations.
MAKING SENSE OF WHAT THEY SAY
A presentation and discussion of engaging stories derived from oral history research, illustrating different ways to give artful and intellectually exciting shape to the results of local historical research. Drawing upon written documents as well as interviews, the stories demonstrate that chronology isn’t always the most effective storytelling framework, and illustrate different kinds of research that can complement oral history and deepen and enliven a presentation.
“Your workshop was a rare and welcome combination of organization and high creativity that is sending me out with a head full of ideas and the resources to get going on them.”
Workshops on the Art of Storytelling
Workshops for Historical Societies, Community Groups, and Family Historians