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What was the focus of your work or the nature of your teaching problem? Why is this important to you? For
the last two years our school (Hoover Middle School) has been involved
with a project called "Using Oral History to Understand Issues of
immigration, Migration and Acculturation". This project is a
collaboration between Hoover and California State University Long Beach
under the Schools for the New Millenium Project. The project is
sponsored by the national Endowment for the Humanities. The project
culminates this year with the present 8th.Graders. My students are
7th.Graders and were thus not directly involved in the finished
product. However, the research that the students were doing, and the
experience they were getting as "oral historians", was something
valuable. Accordingly, we decided that all the students should be
involved. Also, even though the grant will end, and the project will
officially terminate this year, the history teachers decided that this
kind of project is something we would like to continue on our own. The
work I done with my 7th.graders, which was a simpler, modified version
of the work the 8th.graders were doing, was not only a fun and valuable
project in its owm right, it was an introduction to the more extensive
work they will be undertaking next year.
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What did you learn about teaching the subject, and what did you learn about the subject through teaching it? First,
I learned a lot about the history of migration to Long Beach. Some of
the student's stories were facinating. Not surprisingly I learned that
I have a lot to learn from my students. I also learned that the process
of recording Oral History is deceptively complicated. The students had
great fun using tape recorders, however, with a few exceptions, the
quality of the recordings was poor. The students turned the tapes on
and off at will, they re-recored the parts they didn't like and they
didn't ask very good questions of the people they interviewed. next
time we will have to spend a lot more time preparing for this part. I
also learned that some people don't particularly want to talk about
their history. The parents of two of my students called me at school
and asked that they be excused from the project. I also learned that
for some people the past is best left in the past. the parents of two
students called me and asked to be excused from the project. In both
cases they said they did not want the history of their family's
migration to be discussed in class.
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What resources, colleagues, and/or collaborations advanced your thinking about your project? What was your
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What did you do? The
students were asked to chronicle the immigration or migration of a
family member to Southern California. Many were able to tell the story
of their parent's migration. Some chose a grandparent. Others a family
friend. After they had done their research they were interviewed by
another member of the class and recored, on tape, what they had
discovered. they also summarised their findings in a report and
constucted an illustrated "Timeline" of the major events in the life of
the migrant.
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What
were the tools, scaffolds and supports that you constructed to help
students practice historical methods, do historical thinking, and
achieve historical understanding? The students'
final projects were the result of several weeks work. To make sure each
student was progressing we devised a checklist and timetable for the
students to follow. At several pointa on the list the students work was
assessed to make sure they were on track.
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How
does this apply to your future teaching decisions, and how will you
bring these ideas back to your colleagues, schools, and others teaching
similar students or content?
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What implications does your work have for teaching a diverse student body, including English learners? This
project resulted in a wonderful celebration of the cultural diversity
of our school. A particularly rewarding part was to hear students say
how they did not know where their family came from until they started
asking questions of their parents for this assignment. Sharing their
stories with the rest of the class was a positive experience for all of
the students.
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Related Resources The
students in my class took part in an on-line discussion board
throughout the year. They used Blackboard.com. While they were doing
this project they posted their discoveries so that other students could
compare and encourage each other. By clicking on the link you can see
some of their responses.
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What were the major findings of your work? What is the significance of your work to others? I
think the students learned some important lessons about how history is
recorded. for example, how one person's significant event can be
trivial to somebody else. I think they got to see how our view of
history is effected by what we choose to record, or indeed, what we
choose to remember. The students are only 7th.graders, but I think most
of them grasped this, and I believe that this experience of being, in a
small way, Historians, and not just students of history, was a very
worthwhile lesson.
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