Organize yourself into groups of four or five and swap names/email addresses/phone numbers. You will need to arrange to meet outside of class times.
As a group, try and come up with some names of people who you think may have an interesting historical story to tell - these could be relatives or friends who were yuppies in the eighties, civil rights activists in the sixties, feminists in the seventies, veterans in a foreign war, housewives in the fifties . . . . . whatever.
Think and talk about what is involved in this project. You will need to think about: what research you will need to do; what sort of questions will generate the most interesting, expansive answers; who is going to conduct the interview, what the best setting for the interview would be, who is going to transcribe the tape, how much do we edit our text, and what is the best way to present it?
Assign tasks to people within the group: project manager(s) researcher(s), interviewer(s), transcriber(s), editor(s), however you want to do it. Share the workload out as equally as possible and try and make use of people's strengths and skills: good social skills, good typing, good desk top publishing skills. . . .
Contact your interviewee and ask whether they are interested in participating. Explain what you are doing and why. Tell them how oral history interviews differ from normal conversations or newspaper interviews. Give them a good idea of what you'll want to talk about so that they can think about things in advance.
Once you find a willing interviewee, do some careful research about the time period and subject matter about which they will be speaking. Generate both background knowledge and a list of questions. You may not end up asking all your questions, but at least you'll have a place to start, and things to fall back on if the conversation dries up a little.
Conduct the interview. Check your tape recorder is switched on. Chose a location that is not too noisy or distracting. Aim for about 45 minutes to an hours worth of discussion. Don't spend all day chatting away because the transcribers will hate you for it.
Transcribe the tape. As a group decide upon your editing procedure and how you would like to present this material.
Include a brief introduction, giving details about your group and the interviewee, and conclude by giving a one to two page overview of your project. Did you feel like it was a success or a failure, why? How valuable do you think your interview as a historical document? Does it support or contradict information you discovered in your research? How accurately do you think you were able to portray the experiences of your subject? In the end, was the story you told his/hers or somehow yours? What would you do differently next time?
If there is time at the end of the quarter each group will have the opportunity to tell the rest of the class about their particular project
You will be asked to evaluate the performance and contribution of the other members of your group.
