 The Library
of Congress >> Research Centers |
|||
|
Folklife Resources for EducatorsMaterials Related to Oral historyThere are 36 titles in this list.
Dakotah Storyteller: Mary Louise Defender Wilson K-12 curriculum ideas for studying the life and artistry of 1999 NEA National Heritage Fellow Mary Louise Defender Wilson, storyteller and performer of songs, dances, and legends of the Dakotah (Sioux) and Hidatsa people. These materials can be used in the curriculum areas of language arts, geography, social studies, history, visual arts, and science. Includes audio recording of Wilson telling the Dakotah story “The Woman Who Turned Herself to Stone,” a transcript of an interview with her, background on Native American storytelling and language, and additional resources.
Sponsoring Organization: Explore Your Community: A Community Heritage Poster for the Classroom Poster designed for the middle and high school classroom to encourage students to learn more about their own communities by engaging in documentation and field projects. Includes suggestions for heritage studies and community projects, such as interviewing friends and classmates about school-related traditions and developing a walking tour of a local historical neighborhood. The poster is also available free of charge from the American Folklife Center.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Family Ties and Fabric Tales Lesson with activities for students in elementary, middle, and high school on researching family history by conducting interviews. Included is a Family Data Sheet for use in collecting oral histories and activities on mapping the historical settlement patterns of families. Intended for use in Reading and Language Arts and Social Studies curricula.
Sponsoring Organization: Folk Arts in Education - A Resource Handbook II Resource handbook examining folklife, folklore, and folk arts in education throughout the United States with sample curricula from over fifty programs for youth in K-12 educational settings, museums, arts and humanities councils, and other non-profit cultural and arts organizations. The 262-page handbook includes many web-based educational resources, plus a webography and bibliography, for the study of folk arts that encourage students to become involved in hands-on, experiential learning, fieldwork, and place-based research in local community settings. It is available on the site in downloadable form or for sale in hardcopy or on CD through the Michigan State University Museum's Michigan Traditional Arts Program Store.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Folklife and Fieldwork: An Introduction to Field Techniques A guide to conducting folklife fieldwork, updated in 2005. (46 p. PDF) Includes information on what to collect, how to do fieldwork, and provides examples of release forms, data sheets, and logs for audio, video, and still photography. Also has tips on using tape recording, video, and photographic equipment. A Spanish-language translation of the guide is included, under the title "La Tradición Popular y la Investigación de Campo Una introducción a las técnicas de investigación." (46 p. PDF) Both English and Spanish versions are also available in free published versions from the American Folklife Center.
Sponsoring Organization: The Grand Generation: Interviewing Guide & Questionnaire Educational website designed as a guide for collecting folklore and oral history from older tradition-bearers. It features a general guide to conducting interviews and a sample list of questions which may be adapted to specific needs and circumstances. The site also includes some examples of ways to preserve and present your findings and a selection of further readings. The site was produced to accompany the exhibition, "The Grand Generation: Memory, Mastery, Legacy," organized by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and SITES, but can easily serve in a stand-alone capacity to instruct students in grades 3 through college in the documentation of family folklore and oral history collected from elders.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Grand Generation Discussion Guide Discussion guide for grades 10-12 to accompany the film “The Grand Generation,” created by filmmakers Marjorie Hunt, Paul Wagner, and Steve Zeitlin in 1993. The 28-minute film, available as streaming video on folkstreams.net, is a portrait of six older Americans from Maryland, Mississippi, New York, Washington, D.C., New Mexico, and Tennessee, each with their roots in a unique cultural heritage and their own distinctive perspectives on the nature of aging. The discussion guide and film consider the issues of creative aging, diversity, race relations, gender roles, hard times and resilience, creativity, the cycle of life, and technological change in the lives of the featured elders.
Sponsoring Organization: Harvesting the River Lesson Plan: Taking an Oral History Lesson plan for students in grades 5-12 to introduce them to recording and writing up an oral history from a family or community member after hearing and/or reading oral histories. Materials include a link to "Harvesting the River," an online audio, video, and image archive of the Illinois State Museum, based on research done on communities and activities found along the Illinois River. Lesson includes interviewing guidelines and procedures, as well as information on how to use the materials documented by the students. Addresses the Illinois State Board of Education Standards and Goals for History and Social Studies. (3 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: In the Wake of the Hurricanes - Helping Students Document Hurricanes: Interviewing and Fieldwork in the Classroom Classroom resource for teachers working with 5th through 12th grade students to help them understand and cope with the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The unit involves teaching students to interview each other, community members, and family about hurricane experiences. Includes lesson plans, activities, and handouts correlated to Louisiana Content Standards. (64 p. PDF) In addition, three art lesson plans provide guidance on working with students and hurricane recovery.
Sponsoring Organization: Indivisible Educator's Guide An educator's guide for K-12 students that combines photography and first-person narratives to explore community life, identity, and civic action (72 p. PDF). Lesson plans are available on taking documentary photographs, collecting oral histories, and analyzing gathered fieldwork documentation. It includes descriptions of twelve community documentation projects undertaken throughout the United States. Created in 2000 in connection with a national documentary project called "Indivisible: Stories of American Community." A selection of slides and an audio cd of excerpted project interviews accompanies the lessons.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Lakota Winter Counts - The Teachers' Guide Teacher's guide to an online exhibit of Lakota "winter counts" for students in grades K-10. Lakota winter counts are pictographic calendars reflecting the history of a community, made by keeping track of the passage of years. Studying these creative historiographical tools offers a unique representation of the history of the Lakota Sioux people during the 18th and 19th centuries. The teacher's guide includes background information, lesson plans, resource lists, and primary sources from the Smithsonian's collections, plus instructions on navigating the online exhibit. Meets national curriculum standards for Social Studies. (33 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Latino Philadelphia Five-unit educational guide with lesson plans and activities in documenting and interpreting the history and experience of Philadelphia’s Latino communities. The materials in this guide are geared to the middle and high school classroom for use in the curriculum areas of history, geography, reading, writing, and the arts and humanities. The five units focus on Latino Identity and Diversity; Coming to Philadelphia; Labor and Struggle; Building Community; and Arts and Culture. Background materials include a glossary, resources for teachers and students, information on doing oral history, and links to primary source materials, drawn from the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and other materials. The lesson plan is correlated to the Pennsylvania Department of Education Standards for Reading and Writing, History, Geography, and Arts and Humanities.
Sponsoring Organization: Learn NC K-12 teaching and learning resources from the School of Education at the University of North Carolina. Includes lesson plans and learning materials (text and multimedia) on all curriculum areas for use by students independently or as part of classroom instruction. Resources can be browsed by grade level, subject area, and curriculum objective. Lesson plans include folklore, traditional culture, and many other topics. All lesson plans are aligned to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.
Sponsoring Organization: Lewis & Clark - The National Bicentennial Exhibition Teaching Units and Lesson Plans Curriculum materials for grades 4-12 with a virtual exhibit of the "Lewis & Clark: The National Bicentennial Exhibition" that explores the cultural landscape the explorers encountered in the early 19th century. The teaching units with lesson plans and suggested activities cover the topics of: Preparing for the Trip; Politics & Diplomacy; Women; Mapping; Animals; Language; Warriors/Soldiers; Trade & Property; and Plants, each comparing and contrasting Lewis and Clark's experiences with what those of the Native Americans they met might have been. The lessons are geared to upper elementary, middle school, and high school levels, are inquiry-based, and use primary source materials, artifacts, and Indian interviews featured in the online exhibition. Also includes video clips, maps, and a variety of documents. Units are linked to Missouri State Standards and National Council for the Social Studies and National Science Teachers Association standards.
Sponsoring Organization: The Maine Song and Story Sampler Educational website with thirteen lesson plans plus activities for K-12 teachers that focuses on the folklore, social conditions, history, politics, economics, and cultural life of the state of Maine. Includes access to the Maine Song and Dance Sampler Map with links to audio recordings of stories and songs from the Maine Folklife Center's archival collections, searchable by people or place. The curriculum suggestions are correlated to Maine educational standards for Social Studies.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Mapping Our Neighborhood History Curriculum unit on the interactive PhilaPlace web site, (http://www.philaplace.org/), that offers a guide to developing local history projects so that students can explore the history and culture of their own neighborhoods. It includes teacher resources and classroom activities aimed for the middle and high school grades, aligned with Pennsylvania State Standards. The unit provides information on incorporating mapping technology into the classroom through the use of Google Maps and also gives guidance on conducting oral histories to gather additional background information through the voices of neighborhood residents. (20 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Native American Dolls Teaching guide for K-12 education with lesson plan and activities on diverse traditions of Native American dolls and dollmaking. Native doll makers describe how their work keeps old traditions alive and helps in developing new traditions. Includes examples of Navajo, Inupiat, Ojibwe, Seneca, and Seminole dolls exhibited in the National Museum of the American Indian and transcripts of interviews with their makers. The lesson is useful for teaching about cultural differences where students are encouraged to compare and contrast Native dolls with those from their own background. It meets national curriculum standards for History and Geography. Lesson plan originally published in the fall 2004 issue of "Smithsonian In Your Classroom." (28 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Pass It On: Cultural Traditions of the Lower Eastern Shore K-12 curriculum and activity guide to the cultural life, history, landscape, and traditions of the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland. Curriculum units with lesson plans and activities include: I) Following the Water (19 pp. PDF); II) Living Off the Land (36 pp. PDF); III) Sporting and Playing (14 pp. PDF) ; and IV) Folklore and Folklife (32 pp. PDF). There is also a map of the Eastern Shore, a glossary of terms, a bibliography for further research, and links to audio and video clips. The curriculum has been synchronized with Maryland state content standards for Social Studies, and can be used for classes in History, Geography, Science, Economics, and Art.
Sponsoring Organization: Piedmont Blues Guitarist: John Cephas K-12 curriculum ideas for studying the life and artistry of John Cephas, a 1989 NEA National Heritage Fellow and Piedmont Blues guitarist. Includes lesson suggestions, a transcript of an interview with John Cephas, an audio sample of his music, and additional resources. These materials can be used in lessons in the curriculum areas of Language Arts, Social Studies, Geography, Folklife Studies, Visual Arts, Music, and History to examine blues music, race relations, and traditional culture in the Piedmont region of Appalachia.
Sponsoring Organization: Preserving the Past with Oral History Lesson plan to use with students in grades 4-12 that introduces them to the basics of collecting oral history. Includes suggested questions to ask, tips to remember while interviewing, sample release forms, guidelines for transcribing interviews, and considerations to take into account in choosing appropriate technology for recording. Included are also examples of oral history projects that classes can use with their completed interviews. The lesson is correlated to Arkansas Curriculum Standards for History and Social Studies.(12 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Red Alexander: Shipwright and Folk Artist - Study Guide Study guide for middle and high school students to accompany the film “Red Alexander: Shipwright and Folk Artist,” created by Archie Green and Chris Simon in 1998. The 25-minute film, available as streaming video on folkstreams.net, focuses on the life and craft of a retired shipwright whose exquisite models of working ships mirror his fifty-year career building ships on the Oakland Estuary in California. The guide can be integrated into social studies and language arts curricula and serves as an introduction for students to labor culture and history in its focus on an occupational community in the Bay Area.
Sponsoring Organization: Rural Roads, City Streets: Italians in Pennsylvania Lesson plan with activities related to Italian American life and history in Pennsylvania, geared to the middle and high school classroom, for use in the curriculum areas of history, civics and government, geography, reading, and writing. The unit focuses on the history of Italian immigration, settlement, and ethnic identity in Pennsylvania and major themes in Italian immigrant life. Background materials include a glossary, resources for teachers and students, and links to primary source materials, including photographs and oral histories, drawn from the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and other materials. The lesson plan is correlated to the Pennsylvania Department of Education Standards for Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, History, and Geography.
Sponsoring Organization: A Singing Stream: A Black Family Chronicle - Curriculum Guides Three curriculum guides to accompany the film “A Singing Stream: A Black Family Chronicle,” created by filmmaker Tom Davenport with Daniel Patterson and Allen Tullos in 1986. The 57-minute film, available as streaming video on folkstreams.net, traces the history of the Landis family of Granville County, North Carolina, over the lifetime of its oldest surviving member, 86-year-old Bertha Landis. In the film, her sons' gospel quartet, "The Golden Echoes" rehearses and performs during a Landis family reunion. Family members also describe their migration North, work, race relations, music, and family ties. The site includes a film study guide by Beverly Patterson for 8th and 9th grades that explores African American history, music, family life and culture, and film as a social and historical document. Also available is an intergenerational film discussion guide by Paddy Bowman that offers ideas for considering issues of Jim Crow segregation, voting rights, gospel music-making, and faith and resilience in African American families. In addition, the site includes a teaching guide for grades 10-12 by Paddy Bowman focusing on aspects of the film mentioned above plus background essays on gospel quartets, Bertha Landis, and Granville County, North Carolina.
Sponsoring Organization: The Smithsonian Folklife and Oral History Interviewing Guide Interviewing guide for collecting folklife field research and oral history from tradition-bearers, and family and community members. Created in 2003, it provides guidelines on conducting interviews, with sample questions that may be adapted to specific needs and circumstances. Also includes ideas on preserving and presenting field research findings, a selection of further readings, a glossary of key terms, and sample forms, such as release forms, tape and photo logs, and interview information forms. (35 p. PDF) Can be used for classroom projects.
Sponsoring Organization: The Sonic Memorial Project - For Educators Based on programs created for National Public Radio's Lost and Found Sound, the Sonic Memorial Project developed as a cross-media collaboration of independent radio and new media producers, artists, historians, and people from around the world who contributed recordings to the September 11 Digital Archive. SonicMemorial.org is an open archive with an online audio installation of the history of the World Trade Center, New York City. In addition to the audio recordings, the site includes a curriculum for educators with modules of lesson plans on the following topics: 1) History and Time; 2) Memorials; 3) The Places and Stories of Our Lives; 4) Civic Ideals and Practices; 5) Culture and Identity, and 6) How to Talk about 9/11. Accompanying follow-up activities and resources can be used with the lesson plans. The curriculum materials were written to support national standards in Social Studies education.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Sweet is the Day: A Sacred Harp Family Portrait - Teacher's Guide Teacher’s guide for grades 6-8 to accompany the film, “Sweet is the Day: A Sacred Harp Family Portrait,” created by Jim Carnes and Erin Kellen in 2001. The 59-minute film, available as streaming video on folkstreams.net, tells the story of the Woottens, one of the key singing families who helped Sacred Harp music survive and flourish for more than 150 years in the South. The film intertwines scenes of family gatherings, singing conventions, and farm life in the Sand Mountain region of northeast Alabama with family recollections and songs from the shape-note tradition. The teaching guide and film explore shape-note music and Sacred Harp singing, including the importance of the tradition in the lives of families in the Sand Mountain community.
Sponsoring Organization: Teacher's Guide to the Teen Reporter Handbook Teacher's guide accompanying the "Teen Reporter Handbook: How to Make Your Own Radio Diary," a publication created by NPR's Radio Diaries project to train young people in interviewing and making sound recordings about their own lives, their communities, and their families. (14 p. PDF) Includes link to the "Teen Reporter Handbook" (22 p. PDF). Also includes an oral history unit for classroom teaching and other resources related to doing oral history, such as oral history websites, lesson plans, instructions for developing oral history questions, and guidelines on recording an interview.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Teaching Folklife: Educational Materials for Students and Teachers This educational resource contains lesson plans designed to introduce teachers and students to a basic understanding of traditional culture in Tennessee. It is most useful for students in the 4th through 7th grades. The guide includes five lesson plans: I) Introduction to Traditional Culture; II) Storytelling and Oral History; III) Folk Arts and Crafts; IV) Traditional Music; and V) Foodways. The resource includes a glossary of folklife terms and readings brought together from a wide variety of sources on the topic of Tennessee traditional arts. Materials in the guide can be used in the classroom for teaching Language Arts, Music, Visual Arts, Social Studies, and Math.(179 p. PDF)
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Tell Me Your Stories: An Oral History Curriculum Oral history curriculum for high school and middle school grade levels that links students with their families and communities. The site includes lessons for ten class periods, beginning with a description of what oral history is, and subsequently outlining the steps involved in planning, researching, and carrying out an oral interview. Included on the site are ideas for sample projects applicable to a variety of classroom subjects.
Sponsoring Organization: Telling My Story Oral History Lesson - Lower Elementary School A lesson with activities for students in grades K-3 to introduce them to oral history as a way to gather information about a person, time period, place, or event. The materials included guide the students in developing a list of questions to ask during an oral history interview and explain the basics of interviewing. Appropriate for use with history, social studies, and language arts curricula.
Sponsoring Organization: The Ties that Bind Multi-media resource created in 2006 for K-12 classroom teachers to address Colorado model content standards in History, Geography, and other disciplines. The tool contains the following: Written essays (Sections 1 and II); Lesson plans (Section III); Lists of additional resources (Section IV); plus audio and video resources that can be downloaded from the site. Eleven lesson plans include: "The Art of Interviewing" (14 p. PDF), "Colcha Embroidery" (8 p. PDF), ""Exploring Cowboy Life Through Cowboy Poetry," (30 p. PDF), "Folklore Bingo" (10 p. PDF), "Hmong Cultures" (12 p. PDF), "Introduction to Folklore for Grade 12" (6 p. PDF), "Latino Cultures" (10 p. PDF), "Quilts across Cultures" (12 p. PDF), "St. Patrick's Day and the Irish" (12 p. PDF), "Take a Trip to a Special Place" (6 p. PDF), and "Wheat Weaving" (10 p. PDF).
Sponsoring Organization: Unbroken Tradition – Teacher’s Guide Teacher’s guide for grades 3-6 to accompany the film “Unbroken Tradition,” created by Joey Brackner, Erin Kellen, and Herb Smith in 1986. The 29-minute film, available as streaming video on folkstreams.net, is a portrait of Jerry Brown, a ninth generation potter from Hamilton, Alabama, whose forebears first set up a potter’s wheel in Georgia around 1800. The film takes the viewer through the steps of making a churn from digging the clay and preparing it for the potter’s wheel, to actual turning and firing of the piece in the kiln. It also includes Jerry’s explanation of how he came to the potter’s trade relatively late in life. The teacher’s guide and film explore issues relating to the continuation of this family tradition over generations, the making of stoneware pottery, and the importance of pottery in daily life in the past in the American South.
Sponsoring Organization: Other Organizations: Other Organizations: Veterans' Stories: Struggles for Participation - Primary Source Set Primary source materials from the Veterans History Project Collection at the Library of Congress that support teaching about U.S. history and social studies. Women and people of color have often had to overcome obstacles in order to participate fully in the U.S. armed forces. In these materials, veterans tell their stories of discrimination and struggles for recognition in the U.S. armed forces through interviews, memoirs, and photographs. Materials on the site include an accompanying Teacher Guide (8 p. PDF), and audio and video recordings. For the Veterans' History Project, go to: http://www.loc.gov/vets
Sponsoring Organization: Veterans' Stories: The Veterans History Project - Primary Source Set Primary source materials from the Veterans History Project Collection at the Library of Congress that support teaching about 20th-century U.S. history, social studies, and oral history. Materials on the site include a Veterans History Project teacher guide (8 p. PDF), photographs, drawings, letters, memoirs, and video interviews of American veterans. The primary source set links to "Primary Source Analysis Tools" and "Especially for Educators and Students," a guide on how to conduct interviews with veterans and submit them to the Library of Congress for inclusion in the Veterans History Project Collection. For the Veterans' History Project, go to: http://www.loc.gov/vets/
Sponsoring Organization: Woodsmen and River Drivers – Teaching Guide Teaching guide for grades 10-12 to accompany the film “Woodsmen and River Drivers,” created by filmmakers Michael Chalufour, Karan Sheldon, and David Weiss in 1989. The 28-minute film, available as streaming video on folkstreams.net, features men and women who worked for a lumber company in Maine before 1930 and who share their recollections of the logging industry. Documentary footage illustrates the dangerous and exhausting work of cutting trees by hand, hauling logs to the river with horses, and floating them down to the mill. By encountering firsthand accounts of arduous physical labor and the seasonal round of old-time logging in the film and teaching guide, students gain perspective on work and occupations in their own lives and communities, including how occupational folklife contributes to a sense of place.
Sponsoring Organization: Youth Portraits The Youth Portraits project was established to teach young people recently released from New York City's Rikers Island correctional facility how to use audio to tell stories about their lives. With the help of Sound Portraits producers, the young people crafted short audio documentaries by conducting interviews, cutting their own tape, adding music, and using computers to create finished pieces that were aired on public radio in January 2002. The Youth Portraits web site features their photos, streamed audio pieces with transcripts, and curriculum materials. The educational resources include a study guide (62 p. PDF) plus a recording and interviewing tutorial. These materials can be used in the classroom or as part of a life skills curriculum with youth.
Sponsoring Organization: |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Back to
Top
| ||||