what happens in an oral history course?

Oral history programs carry out oral history projects on multiple major topics or focus on one major theme. Programs may offer training and consultation services for the broader community and they often partner with one another and network with other oral historians through the Oral History Association and its affiliates.

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What is oral history in education?

Oral history incorporated into the educational setting is a method of teaching that accepts the principles of creating and utilizing recorded interviews for the purposes of instruction. Research and surveys have shown that four major cognitive and affective goals can be met through well-planned oral history courses, projects, and programs:

What is an oral historian?

Oral historians are also concerned with storageof their findings for use by later scholars. In oral history projects, an interviewee recalls an event for an interviewer who records the recollections and creates a historical record. event interviewee interviewer historical record

What is the best way to research oral history?

The best oral history is always done in tandem with other research activities, whether done in archives, in newspaper files, with quantitative data, or in other conventional sources of historical material.

What is the process of oral history interviewing?

The process of oral history interviewing, because it involves the structuring of memory, is actually a process in the construction of a usable past. Writing one's diary—or speaking about one's past before a microphone—is an act of anticipatory memory. This is neither scientific nor objective.

What does oral history include?

What is Oral History? Oral history is a method of conducting historical research through recorded interviews between a narrator with personal experience of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of adding to the historical record.

What is an oral history class?

Oral history is a method to learn about past events from the spoken stories of people who lived through them. When students conduct oral history research with members of their families or community they are participating in active learning rooted in the student's own experience.

How do you study oral history?

Preparing for Oral History InterviewsSelect an interviewee.Ask the interviewee if they are interested.If interviewee is interested, set up a time and place for the interview. ... Write a follow-up email confirming plans for the interview that discusses the goals, legal rights, and how the interviews will be handled.More items...

What are the six elements of oral history?

Alessandro Portelli identifies six elements that mark out oral history as intrinsically different or peculiar from other historical sources. These are orality, narrative, subjectivity, credibility, objectivity and authorship. To these might be added performativity, mutability and collaboration.

Is oral history reliable?

Because oral histories rely on the memory of individuals, some of my colleagues believe they are less reliable sources than written documents. But oral histories really can correct, confirm, and add to the historical record.

What is the difference between oral history and written history?

Perhaps the most important difference between oral history and traditional history is the personal nature of the former. Oral history typically involves interviews with individuals who either tell their life stories or focus on a certain aspect of their history.

How far back does oral go?

Under optimal conditions, as suggested by science-determined ages for events recalled in ancient stories, orally shared knowledge can demonstrably endure more than 7,000 years, quite possibly 10,000, but probably not much longer.

How do you start an oral history essay?

Introduce the individual, explain the circumstances of the interview, and then literally transcribe your questions and their responses. How should you structure your essay? Present the questions and responses in the order you asked the questions. You may also include an introduction that briefly describes the person.

What makes a good oral history?

Four key elements of oral history work are preparation, interviewing, preservation, and access. Oral historians should give careful consideration to each at the start of any oral history project, regardless of whether it is comprised of one or many interviews.

What is oral history and why is it important?

Oral history is a technique for generating and preserving original, historically interesting information— primary source material—from personal recollections through planned recorded interviews. This method of interviewing is used to preserve the voices, memories and perspectives of people in history.

2 – The testimonies are entirely voluntary

When the project begins, the individuals to be interviewed are informed of the nature and purpose of the same project, as well as the purpose of the interview itself.

3 – The dissemination of the resulting contents of the interview should follow any restrictions established by the narrator

The person responsible for the interview should ensure that the interviewee understands their rights and request their written or oral (recorded) consent. This document must contain the parameters imposed by the narrator respecting the content and may even restrict the use of certain materials.

4 – The historian or interviewer should always respect the interviewees, as well as the research in view

The purpose of Oral History is to focus on historically and socially significant issues, which reflect a correct and careful preparation of the interview and an understanding of the issues to be addressed throughout the same.

5. In most cases the interviewees are identified by name, with few exceptions

The identity of the narrators contributes to contextualise and thus enrich the content of the narrative.

6. Interviews are documents of historical relevance to be preserved for future reference (for other historians or the general public)

The head of the oral project must take into account the best way to preserve the original documents collected in the course of the project itself (transcripts, photographs, copies of documents, audio and/or video recordings, etc.), in order to guarantee and safeguard the accessibility and usability of these sources by others.

7. Preservation of collected data should be carefully done and, therefore, the interviews and transcripts should be carried out with quality

To ensure preservation of good quality documents, all materials and equipment used to record and file must correspond to the best possible quality, within the financial limits of the individual or responsible institution.

8. Whoever conducts the interview should not engage in situations that cannot be met

The project manager should not maintain a close relationship between narrator and historian (that sometimes is not the same person who conducts the interview).

What is oral history?

Oral history is a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events. Oral history is both the oldest type of historical inquiry, predating the written word, and one of the most modern, initiated with tape recorders in ...

What is the Oral History Association?

The Oral History Association offers several resources for you to learn about all facets of oral history. OHA also offers a series of publications on community oral history, family oral history, oral history and the law, and other subjects.

What is an oral history interview?

An oral history interview generally consists of a well-prepared interviewer questioning an interviewee and recording their exchange in audio or video format. Recordings of the interview are transcribed, summarized, or indexed and then placed in a library or archives.

Does oral history include random tapes?

Oral history does not include random taping, such as President Richard Nixon’s surreptitious recording of his White House conversations, nor does it refer to recorded speeches, wiretapping, personal diaries on tape, or other sound recordings that lack the dialogue between interviewer and interviewee.”.

How can oral history be applied to students?

To accomplish these aims, oral history can be applied by involving students in two pedagogical approaches, both of which engage them in higher-level thinking, the pursuit of historical investigation, the interpretation of data, and the presentation of products derived from the research.

What is oral history?

Oral history is interactive and can put the student in the center of learning. Oral history supports cognitive development and affective instruction. Oral history supports Common Core in a creative and motivational fashion. Oral history supports close reading, research and oral language skills.

Why is preservation of oral history interviews the least developed component?

This is often attributed to cost, the lack of archival expertise, and the inability to find an organization willing to catalogue and preserve the oral history materials.

Why is oral history important in the classroom?

Benefits of Using Oral History in Classroom. Oral history brings the social studies curriculum to life as students realize that they are surrounded by, and are part of, the creation of history. Oral history makes learning memorable. Oral history is interactive and can put the student in the center of learning.

Who owns the oral history website?

The oral history content was created by Dr. Barry A. Lanman and Dr. Laura M. Wendling. Copyright and intellectual rights to the material contained in this website is owned by Dr. Barry A. Lanman and Dr. Laura M. Wendling. The material may be used by teachers for educational purposes with appropriate credit.

Can you put transcripts in an archive?

Copies of any paper release forms signed by interviewees should be included along with the transfer of any materials to an archive. If a transcript of the oral history interview is produced, an archive may be able to put electronic transcripts into a format that allows for keyword searches.

What is oral history?

Oral history is an antidote to traditional history, that is always in danger of slipping into ‘official’ history, bolstering the outlook on one particular group over the interests and values of others.

Why can't oral histories be treated as an objective account of past events?

Oral histories cannot be treated as an objective account of past events, not because cerebral failures and cognitive impairment operate under the skull to frustrate faithful recollection of the truth but because the oral history method is itself a situated social practice.

What is ecological oral history?

Ecological oral history is a type of oral history that seeks to document knowledge about the natural world that is held within people’s memories and cultural beliefs. The methodology is used by researchers exploring traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), ethno-botanists interested in local plant taxonomies, and by those who investigate competing claims about environmental change. Most often ecological oral histories are collected from key informants or local people considered to be experts about a particular species, habitat, or place. They have been used in geography, anthropology, and related subjects to document what are often seen to be threatened systems of knowledge.

What is oral history interview?

Oral histories do not capture past events, rather they reveal the current platforms from which memory takes place. The oral history interview is generative – co-authoring memories – rather than performing as a ventilator – neutrally bringing preexisting memories to the surface. It is at root a ‘political practice’.

Why is oral history interviewing important?

Sensitivity and discretion must be present at all times. The process of oral history interviewing, because it involves the structuring of memory, is actually a process in the construction of a usable past. Writing one's diary—or speaking about one's past before a microphone—is an act of anticipatory memory.

When did biographical research become popular?

Together with oral History, biographical research became prominent mainly in the 1990s and 2000s in revealing how World War II, and especially the Holocaust, affected and shaped the lives of millions of people, making them perpetrators or victims, or both (Inowlocki, 2000; Kazmierska, 2012; Rosenthal, 2010 ).

Where is every experience of an individual's life stored?

Sigmund Freud among many others, held that every experience of an individual's life was stored somewhere in the brain and could be recalled by some technique, whether therapy, hypnosis, interrogation, drugs, or meditation.

What is oral history?

Oral history is person-centered research. The creation of a recorded interview is a partnership between the narrator and interviewer. To succeed, the oral history partnership requires mutual respect and trust. With careful attention to the following matters, interviewers will go far toward establishing rapport with their narrators and making the oral history experience mutually rewarding.

What is an oral history recording?

An oral history is a sound and/or video recording. With the proper technology and training, an oral historian may edit a digital recording to incorporate it into a museum display, Web site, doc-umentary film, or other sound/visual production. To make an oral history recording useful for future editing, use time codes to provide the location of subjects on the recording by hour, mi-nute, and second.

How to preserve interview recordings?

The first step in preserving your interview recording is to download the digital files to a secure hard drive as soon as possible. (see page 7). These additional steps will help you protect and preserve your recordings for long-term future access.

Is oral history copyrighted?

Oral history interviews produced in the US are subject to US copyright law, which protects fair use of the interview in reproduction, distribution, display, public performance, and the crea-tion of derivative works. Before an interview is recorded, duplicated, transcribed or indexed, made public as an audio file or transcript, quoted in a publication or broadcast, or deposited in an ar-chive, the narrator must transfer copyright ownership to the individual or organization sponsor-ing the project. When the interviewer is someone other than the designated copyright holder, the interviewer must also transfer copyright to the sponsor. Ideally, a release form should be signed before an interview series begins.

Can a narrator record a story?

Narrators must give you written permission to record, reproduce, or distribute their words. With the storyteller’s permission, an interview with an eyewitness to history can become a primary doc-ument that provides significant historical information for years—and hopefully, generations—to come. Every oral history legal-release form should address at least the following matters.

Do narrators have the right to know how their interviews will be used?

Narrators have the right to know how their interviews will be used. Sponsoring organizations or individual interviewers will benefit from thinking broadly when explaining future use, as tech-nological developments constantly create new avenues for publishing and distributing oral histo-ries.

What is oral history?

With its commitment to long-form, biographical interviewing and archival preservation, oral history is distinctive from, for example, the collection of testimony in a court of law or through a truth and reconciliation process.

What is an oral history internship?

Internships can relate to any element of oral history practice and research, including but not limited to project and program development, interviewing, interview processing, analysis and archiving, and creation of exhibits, documentaries, writing, walking tours, or websites using oral history. Internships must be substantive ...

Can I take an OHMA class for a letter grade?

OHMA-required courses must be taken for a letter grade . In addition to the elective internship course, which is always offered Pass/Fail, students may take one or (rarely) two other electives either P/F or for R credit with the prior permission of both the instructor and the OHMA program.