ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

30% of final grade

The Oral History project is your chance to apply what you are learning about gender and communication in our course through praxis (the process of enacting or embodying theory), by using a method that has been of great importance to both the study of gender and the study of communication. Gender and communication scholars are interested in stories. They are interested in lived experience and how we narrate our experiences. They are interested in how these personal experiences connect to larger political, institutional, cultural, and social institutions. Oral histories are one way they study these intersections. This project will have multiple steps and multiple, complementary, products. There will be a number of class periods that will serve as workdays throughout the semester. Other readings and materials will prepare you along the way and additional guidance will be provided.

The Products:

1.) An audio/visual oral history 15%

2.) An analysis and framing essay 15%

The Steps (See course schedule for due dates):

1.) Selection & Planning of Interview (2% of final grade)

Choose someone to interview and schedule a time and place to perform it. 

• The person can be a relative, co-worker, employer, someone from a religious or cultural community you belong to, someone at school, etc. Regardless of whom you choose, you should conduct yourself professionally during the interview process as you are now a representative of BMCC, this course, and your classmates. Even if you choose someone you are close to, handle yourself professionally.

Before your interview you will need to:

• Develop several (7-10) interview questions that will help generate stories about your interviewee’s understanding of gender — Who were/is he/she/them? What messages/behaviors impacted their life? What was it like being a boy/girl growing up in a certain place and time? And so on.

• Prepare for the technical aspects of the recording by being sure you have a recording device and know how to use it properly. Choose a place for the interview that will allow both you and your interviewee to focus and that is quiet enough that your recording won’t be interrupted with distracting sounds. If you are using video, you should also determine how you want to frame your shots.

2.) Interview File (2% of final grade)

• Interview your subject during the time frame indicated on the course schedule. You will share the interview, prior to any editing, on blackboard. The interview should be at least 10 minutes long, though can be up to 30.

3.) Indexed/Transcribed Interview (3% of final grade)

• In the readings on oral history, indexing and transcribing will be detailed. They are both ways of writing what is said in the interview. One is a script and the other is a time-stamped description.

4.) Compositional Choices (3% of final grade)

• Before you put your a/v project together you will review all of the data you collected in the interview and figure out what, from all of that, you will focus on for your creative project. This is a draft that can go into your larger paper. Address concerns such as: How did you identify the story you tell in your oral history from the interview data? What is the story you tell in your oral history? How did you go about constructing the audio/visual project? What ethical concerns affected the choices you made in constructing the story?

5.) Build your five-to-six minute oral history of your interviewee’s gendered experience.

• In this video or podcast, you should tell a story NOT simply provide a five-to-six-minute excerpt from your interview. Your finished product should be a five-to-six minute story using excerpts from the longer interview. You will share your product in class.

6.) The final step, writing the paper, is not a separate step though it is listed separately. Rather, the work you do in the interview and composing the a/v project will influence what you write in the paper, and your writing will likely influence how you put together the a/v project. You can use edited portions of any of the writing you did in steps 1 through 4.

The Paper (Details):

The paper should be five to six FULL pages. It should be double-spaced, with 1 1-inch margins all around in 12 point font. You must use at least five sources, three of which must be scholarly, peer-reviewed essays. Other sources can be pulled together from class readings, supplemental materials reports, or other research you might do to help you flesh out your story.

You should write this as an essay that frames the creative a/v project. It is not a script of your project or the interview. It should go along with the project to explain how you did what you did and how you see what you learned relating to gender and communication. There should be an introduction and conclusion. You must cite your sources using MLA format within the essay and include a works-cited page. You should be sure to address the following areas/questions:

Describe Your Process:

How did you decide who to interview and who is this person in the world, and in relation to you?

Setting up the interview - was this easy? Hard? How did you do it?

Preparing for the interview

Your experience conducting the interview

Ethical concerns that arose during the setting up, preparation, and execution of the interview.

Discuss your compositional choices (feel free to reference readings on oral history): 

How did you identify the story you tell in your oral history from the interview data?

What is the story you tell in your oral history?

How did you go about constructing the audio/visual project?

What ethical concerns affected the choices you made in constructing the story?

Analysis: 

What themes came up throughout your interview and, eventually, your oral history?

Use and apply course concepts that help you make sense of the story, how it is told, etc.

Theorize your oral history and why it matters/what it tells us about gender and communication.

You should not write this as a list of answers to these questions. You should answer all of the questions in the form of a well-written, edited essay.