Oral History Exercise
This has proven to be a challenging element in the unit. For many students this will be their first time interviewing a subject matter expert. Create 8 to 10 questions and conduct a practice session with other students. In the end someone must be interviewed - keep questions open ended because you are not sure where the interview will go.
Guidelines:
Development of questions - Start with a brainstorming session whereas students offer questions they would like answered. This will help your students to start think about the project. Write on board and see how many are offered. Afterwards try to whittle the list down to 8 to 10 questions that the class agrees upon. Help steering the questions but make sure they are from the class and not you.
Who is interviewed - This is a critical part if you do not live near a military base. If you live near a military facility chances are many of your students have a story to tell on why they live where they do. For those that do not have a prior service member in the family I suggest finding someone in the community who moved their due to a military incident. However, if the community involved is NOT near a military facility then different course of actions must be taken. Possibly an interview can be done a family member with the intent on finding out they history of their own family and why they live in the community they live in. Another suggestion is emailing the public affairs officer at a military base and requesting service members that the student could email for an interview. A simple ‘google’ of Public Affairs Office at any military installation will result in a contact that can help. In the end, the person interviewed should be someone that can talk about how aviation events effected where they now reside.
Final Product - Ultimately each teacher can decide what they want as a final product. My suggestion is a typed product that has each questioned listed with a response. Then a summary paragraph by the student that captures what was learned by the experience. Finally, each student should take a five minutes to brief what they learned to their fellow classmates. The chance to verbalize their findings will help students articulate and possibly facilitate a discussion in class. In my AFJROTC classroom leadership development is critical. Being able to speak to their peers and lead a discussion helps students become a better leader. The experience can be enhanced by inviting parents to the event. Another option is a short film by each student that can be shown to the school. Lastly, each student could produce a short video of themselves explaining the experience they had which could be shown at any time and saved as a collection of classroom history. Latitude is certainly in place hear but the opportunity to share for future students while capturing personal history is fundamental to the exercise.
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