Smithsonian Institution
Dia de los Muertos: Honoring our Ancestors Through Community Celebration
Oral storytelling has been an important part of every culture. The time-honored practice uses stories as a conduit for a culture's values and customs from one generation to the next. Keep the tradition going with a family interview...
Curated OER
1960 America: Foreign Policy
The 1960's marked shifts in American culture, politics, and policy. Your class groups up to research a series of primary source documents resulting in a timeline and a 15 minute oral presentation. Active learning all the way.
Judicial Branch of California
Faces of Citizenship: Jury Duty
An interesting middle school lesson focuses on the rights and responsibilities of citizens. Academics choose a civic project to complete, such as an oral history or photo essay. They then conduct interviews with members of the community...
Curated OER
Where Do People Move To Or From?
Students identify countries of origin of their ancestors, graph patterns of migration to the U.S. and Hawaii, then utilize oral history as a primary document by interviewing their ancestors or parents to explain why they moved to their...
Curated OER
The Great Migration: An Oral History
Students research the factors which contributed to the great migration and write a well organized research paper using multiple sources. They incorporate quotations into their paper, both direct and paraphrased, in accordance with MLA...
Curated OER
Family Food Favorites
Third graders conduct an interview and create a class cookbook. In this family heritage lesson, 3rd graders read Everybody Bakes Bread and discuss a dish or recipe that is a part of their family's heritage. Students interview family...
Curated OER
Family History
Students research information about their family history, record the information and create some sort of family tree. Then they present it orally to the class.
Story Corps
The Great Thanksgiving Listen
StoryCorp provides a resource that captures and preserves the remembrances of family or community elders. Prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, class members select a person they want to interview, record the conversation, and then upload...
Museum of Tolerance
Artifact Research Activity
Artifacts give us the privilege of learning about the past, may it be family, culture, or traditions. Here, class members learn about their family's past with the help of an artifact, or family heirloom. Once an artifact is discovered,...
Museum of Tolerance
Cultural Research Activity
Class members explore cultural diversity through a variety of texts that showcase the importance of traditions. Then, they interview their family members to research their own cultural background and write their findings on quilt pieces....
Museum of Tolerance
Family Tree Activity
Discover the family histories that make the classroom with a family tree activity. Scholars locate information about their family, construct a family tree, and work together to tally where family members are born.
Curated OER
Port of Entry
Students research patterns of immigration throughout American history. The focus is on the process of how immigrants came through Ellis Island. Students reflect upon the topic to develop critical thinking skills.
Curated OER
Student Post-Interview Review Questions
In this post-interview worksheet, learners assess the content of the material they gathered during the folklife interview in order to continue with the project.
Curated OER
Could You Make an Oak Basket?
Students listen to an interview with Lucreaty Clark, a White Oak Native American basket maker. They analyze the interview and record their observations on a worksheet. Students consider information that can be gleaned from an audio...
Curated OER
Oral History
Students explore cultural diversity, the difficulties of immigration, and lost cultures. They study historical events such as the Holocaust.
Curated OER
Issues in Public Education During the Kentucky Civil Rights Era
Students conduct oral history interviews and research historical and contemporary media articles about multiculturalism and diversity.
Curated OER
Oral Histories
Students determine the importance of primary source history information. They differentiate between primary and secondary source information and conduct an interview with a primary source. They gain a real life perspective about recent...
Curated OER
Coming To America
Students investigate the history of America with the help of children's literature. The story is structured as a timeline that begins at the time of Columbus and progresses to the present. The teacher reads the story with the class and...
Curated OER
Sam Houston for President...Again
Fourth graders discover the political career of Sam Houston. In this Texas history lesson, 4th graders research primary resources and create a modern-day version of Sam Houston's political campaign of the 1840s.
Curated OER
Listening for Leschi: Voices from the Past
Students explore the written and oral histories of mid 19th centruy western Washington. They imagine that they are a reporter who can travel back in time and interview Leschi to create a newspaper article that features him.
Curated OER
Tracing the Route of Bracero
Learners make a map showing the work of a Bracero Worker. In this Bracero lesson, students listen to a worker in an online oral history as he explains his work locations and crops. They use a map to plot the areas he worked and the crops...
Curated OER
Everybody Has a Story
Students read short stories and folk stories to explore oral history and story. They interview elderly family members and/or others in the community and record these stories and histories. They evaluate in a final essay what they have...
Curated OER
The Sound of History: Conducting an Oral Interview
Young scholars conduct an oral interview with a person from their local community. They conduct research, write interview questions, conduct the interview, and identify the subject matter using headings and subheadings.
Curated OER
Preserving History for Illuminating Today's Values and Traditions
Students use the processes of oral history and the latest technology to engage in historical inquiry and the preservation of the past. The work in cooperative groups or individually to discover and capture the past by interviewing family...