Oral History Project

For the past two weeks, I've been helping with interviews for an Oral History assignment in Dr. Cella's WIFYS class. This project allows freshman students to leave campus and interview people in the community, and then write an essay about their stories for publication in an anthology titled Community Connections. Usually, the interviewees are chosen by the students so the anthologies consist of stories from a multitude of careers and lifestyles, with different ages and different goals. This diversity is still shown in those interviewed this year, but Dr. Cella decided to use a common theme for this year's project to underscore each story-- literacy.

So, of course, the interviewees all work with the literacy council in one way or another. Among those interviewed, there are students of basic literacy and ESL, volunteer tutors,  Marie, the FCLC coordinator, and even translators. There have been two rounds of interviews so far, and currently students are working on their essays.

My involvement with this project so far has been to facilitate the interviews at the literacy council and help Marie when she needs it. I will also be helping the students in drafting their essays. It has been a valuable experience to see how something like this comes together, and I hope the people interviewed from the literacy council will appreciate their stories being told once they see them in print and get to take a copy of the collection home with them.

However, this blog functions not only as a place to record and remember the tasks I've completed, but also to evaluate what was useful and what I would change. With that said...

What was useful:

• Having the students carpool. An original idea was that I would be driving the students to their placement, but because I am a busy student, I was happy to hear that most of the students had cars. Of course, I wouldn't have minded-- I just drive a small car and it would have resulted in several trips and lots of gas money.
• Being able to interview both students and volunteers. I think at the beginning of the project Dr. Cella and I were focused on the students, but the perspective of a tutor will add a different dimension to literacy and address the issue from several sides.
• ESL students. I can't wait to read about the lives of those who are not native to America, and especially hear about their struggles with learning a new language and culture.
• Using Honors students. Not that this is a prerequisite for this kind of project, but I think it will result in a deeper contemplation of literacy and the struggles many face with it because the students seem very motivated to make this essay work. I don't mean to be offensive to non-Honors students-- they could definitely pull off this work, too-- but I think that since the students in these two classes have a better understanding of the writing process, they can focus more on the content of their papers and less on the building blocks of essay writing. Also, they may be able to better approach the touchy and sometimes emotional issue of an individual's struggle with literacy.

What I would change:

• The problem most people encountered was the language barrier. We underestimated how many translators we would need and how we should word the questions asked so they were understandable to an ESL student. A better understanding of how many ESL students are willing to be interviewed and what their languages are would allow us to better prepare for this in the future.
• This is one of those things that's kind of difficult to change, but the interview process was more unorganized than I would have liked. Perhaps because I'm somebody who is so organized it borders on neurosis, but I would have liked some sort of document that lists who is interviewing who and the time of the interview. In some sort of calendar or Excel spreadsheet. Color-coded (just kidding). But seriously, this would have made the inevitable surprises (so-and-so didn't show up, these students were late, etc.) a bit simpler to manage.
• Lastly, while making that schedule, I think Marie, Dr. Cella, and I should have met in-person rather than through email. Email is great because it's quick and requires no automobile, but replies to emails come in slowly and everybody seems to be on a different page by the end of it. Carefully planning a schedule that suits everybody should be done when the spokespeople are all present, just to make sure nothing is left out and everyone is prepared.

Overall, the interview process has been a success. Even with those surprises mentioned earlier, everyone got to interview somebody and I'm certain the stories are going to be wonderfully written and entertaining.

I'll write more about the project as it progresses!

(All images photographed by me.)