Performance-Based Instructional Task

Students will examine literary examples of personal oral histories in order to understand how such histories are compiled and passed on to others. Through a series of interviews, students will gather data and compile personal histories. Finally, students will create personal oral histories using artifacts they collect or make.


	Outcome Activity Match
	Teacher Directions
	Materials Required
	Estimated Time
	Student Booklet (146k Acrobat)
	Assessment Information

	#2 Peoples of the Nation & World
	#3 Geography
	#5 Skills & Processes
	#6 Valuing Self & Others
	#7 Understandings & Attitudes

	Reading
	Language Usage

Activities	Outcomes/Indicators
Activity 1	#5 Skills and Processes Define and clarify problems drawn from history and the social sciences, identify resources, and prepare solutions based on available data.
Activity 2	#5 Skills and Processes Obtain, interpret, organize and use print and non-print sources of information such as pictures, graphics, maps, globes, and artifacts.
Activity 2B	#3 Geography Predict the effects of living in a given geographic setting on people's lives.
Activities 3 A & B	#5 Skills and Processes Students will demonstrate an ability -- individually and as part of a group -- to gather information, think critically, and solve problems as needed to facilitate responsible decision-making, to understand complex ideas, and to generate new ideas.
Activities 4A & B	#5 Skills and Processes Obtain, interpret, organize and use print and non-print sources of information such as pictures, graphics, maps, globes, and artifacts.
Activities 5A, B & C	#5 Skills and Processes Obtain, interpret, organize and use print and non-print sources of information such as pictures, graphics, maps, globes, and artifacts. Participate in a group in a variety of roles, such as leader, follower, member, encourager, facilitator, and recorder. #6 Valuing Self and Others Recognize the dignity and worth of people from cultural, racial, religious, ethnic, and other diverse groups.
Activities 6A, B, C & D	#5 Skills and Processes Obtain, interpret, organize and use print and non-print sources of information such as pictures, graphics, maps, globes, and artifacts. Define and clarify problems drawn from history and the social sciences, identify resources, and prepare solutions based on available data.
Activity Extension Activity	#5 Skills and Processes Make and analyze personal decisions and reflect on the results graphics, maps, globes, and artifacts. #7 Understandings and Attitudes Analyze situations in Maryland and U.S. history in which individuals demonstrate respect and support for the rights and dignity of all peoples.

General Information.

Obtain copies of as many of the books listed in the bibliography as possible (see Materials Required for Activity 2) and include additional titles as appropriate. The activities could be adapted for use with just one book, but the students will lose much of the value of the multicultural perspective if limited to a single title. In addition, each book makes use of a different memory cue, which will help students understand this method of transmitting oral history.

Grouping strategies will depend in part on how many books may be shared by students. Students will work individually, in pairs and in heterogeneous groups of four to six for different activities.

It is important throughout this task to be sensitive to students' personal life stories. Some may have no biological relatives to consult about their earlier lives; a variety of circumstances could make searching out their early or recent life very painful. Some families may feel any reconstructing of the past is prying into private matters. Teachers must help students understand that their past can be as recent as the last year, month or week. They can interview teachers, neighbors or any person who has known them. They are in control of what they choose to share about their own stories. One alternative included in this task is to allow students to do someone else's history such as a neighbor, or a teacher.

For further information, teachers can refer to various publications and articles on collecting oral history. Among them are the following: Cobblestones: Ancestors, “Kwakiutal Ancestors,” p. 28, describes telling the story through dance; Cobblestones: Genealogy: A Personal History, “Twenty Questions,” p. 31, suggests questions to ask; and Faces: Storytelling, “Recipe for a Story,” p. 31, deals with important components of telling a good story (personal or otherwise).

Vocabulary.

oral history:: memories of the past which are preserved by retelling.
memory cues:: an article or artifact which helps a person remember past events or people.

Introduction

Ask students how people learn about the past. Have them brainstorm and share some of their ideas with a partner. Explain that students will be preparing oral histories and will be collecting artifacts to accompany their presentations.

Activity 1
Distribute Student Booklet. Students list as many different methods for passing on information about people and events as possible. If no one suggests oral history or stories, introduce the idea and have students discuss advantages and disadvantages.

Activity 2

Divide students into groups to read books from fiction bibliography to find:

memory cue for recalling and telling history (example: Aunt Flossie's hats),
the major events and the reactions people had to them, and
how the geographic setting affected people's lives.

Activity 3

Step A. Have students read along as you read the introductory paragraph. Make sure all students understand what is expected. Students will share their learning by preparing artifacts or memory cues that match the story their group read and by using these items to retell the story to other students. Distribute appropriate materials for students to make memory cues that fit their story. (See list of Materials Required and the Teacher Resources.)

Step B. Place students into new groups as indicated in the Student Booklet. The grouping strategy, Jigsaw, allows each student to be responsible for telling about a book to a group and requires the students to pay close attention to each other's retelling.

Activity 4

The teacher should bring in several personal artifacts and tell students a story of his/her life. Help students understand that artifacts evoke historic and everyday events to help us understand the past.

Activity 5
Step A. Students will begin working on a K-W-L organizer which will be completed as the last step of the task.

Step B. Begin by addressing the problems people encounter when investigating personal histories: There may be matters adults do not wish to discuss with the children, faulty memory or exaggeration, painful memories, conflicting memories of the same event by different participants, and different reactions to events. In addition, people may not have family members available for many reasons. Despite these obstacles, a personal history can still be prepared. Remember sensitivity issues -- see General Information, above.

Following the discussion, have students complete Step B individually.

Step C. Copy and distribute the list of sample question prompts provided for reference; see “Interview Topics Worksheet.” Have students work with partners to write a question for each prompt provided. Then, through teacher-directed discussion, compile a master list of interview questions with the class. With partners, and using the master list of interview questions, have students plan and conduct interviews of each other, and practice taking notes.

Step D. Students use the questions developed in Step C to interview important individuals in their lives or in the life of the person they selected. Be sure to remind students to ask permission of their parents/guardians before contacting other adults. Instruct students to save interview notes and attach them to their booklets. The teacher may want to offer students the option of tape-recording interviews. If so, before taping, students must get permission from the person they choose to tape.

Activity 6

Step A. Using a think/pair/share format, work with the class to create a rubric for scoring student presentations of their oral histories and copy it on the board or a transparency.

Step B. Students will prepare their own personal history, or that of the person they chose, incorporating artifacts or memory cues that are appropriate. Refer back to the books read by the class to have students think about the kinds of artifacts or material objects they could use to present or to evoke the memories of their own lives, or the life of the person they selected. Remind students that the books/stories use a wide variety of memory cues. If artifacts they want to use no longer exist, they can create reproductions to represent the objects.

Provide a selection of appropriate graphic organizers for planning.

Step C. Have students present their oral histories to the class. (Option: videotape the presentations.)

Display the student-generated scoring rubric on the board or a transparency so that students may refer to it as they assess the presentations. Have each student score his/her own presentation, and have two classmates evaluate the presentation using the feedback forms provided in the Student Booklet. After the presentations, have students remove the forms from the booklet and give them to the classmates they evaluated.

Extension Activities

After completing the task, you may wish to have students complete the Metacognitive Feedback Form. This self-assessment is a way to help students integrate new learning experiences by reflecting on them. The feedback can also be helpful in planning other instructional activities to meet student needs. The form may also be adapted to many different types of activities.

The following ideas are offered as examples of further activities which could be included with this task.

Students may create a “Somebody Museum” by assembling and displaying artifacts. Invite parents and other classes to visit the museum. See Creating a “Somebody Museum” in the teacher resources for more details.
Students may create and share videotapes of oral histories of people in the community.
Students may create a “Personal History Quilt,” with a square made by each student in the class to represent important aspects of his/her life, or the life of the person they selected. The quilt could be displayed in the school or community, or shared with other schools.

Activity 2

Howard, Elizabeth, Aunt Flossie's Hats (and Crab Cakes Later), Clarion Books, 1990. (Sarah and Susan visit their Aunt Flossie in Baltimore and hear stories about the history of her life there.)
Martin, Bill, Jr., and John Archambault, Knots on a Counting Rope, Holt, 1985. (A young blind boy loves to retell stories of his life's history with his grandfather.)
Mathis, Sharon Bell, Hundred Penny Box, Viking Press, 1975. (Michael begs his Aunt Dew to tell him the events of her life that are represented by her penny collection.) Polacco, Patricia, Keeping Quilt, Simon & Schuster, 1988. (An old quilt evokes memories of many events in a rich family history.)

Activity 3

Small items to use as memory cues, such as paper or plastic "coins," materials to make simple hats, 12" - 18" pieces of string, etc.
Memory cues for Keeping Quilt and Aunt Flossie's Hats are provided as examples in the teachers’ resources.

Activity 4

Artifacts belonging to the teacher, appropriate for telling a story from the teacher's own life.

Activity 5

Interview Topics Worksheet. (optional)

Activity 6

video equipment (optional)
feedback forms

Extension Activities

Creating a “Somebody Museum.”
Metacognitive Feedback Form

See the teacher’s resources(35k) Acrobat file.

	Activity 1:		30 minutes
	Activity 2:		40-60 minutes
	Activity 3:		40-60 minutes
	Activity 4:		30 minutes
	Activity 5:		90 minutes
	Activity 6:		30 minutes for Student Booklet, one to two hours for presentations

(146k) Acrobat

Rationale
You may want to focus on particular activities to evaluate student progress on a certain indicator and outcome. For the purposes of this exemplar, a sample scoring tool is provided for Activity 6A.

Activity 6A. Now, follow the directions of your teacher to create a class rubric. Copy it below.

This activity addresses Social Studies Outcome #5, Skills and Processes. The response is gauged on a 0 - 2 scoring tool.

Scoring Tool: The response gives evidence of the student's ability to obtain, interpret, organize and use print and non-print sources of information to create a rubric for an oral history presentation.

2: The rubric involves two or more specific and appropriate score points for each of the numbers on the rubric worksheet and one score point for “0.”

1: The rubric includes at least one specific and appropriate score point for each of the four numbers on the rubric worksheet.

0: All other responses.

Sample Answer:

This response includes the following:

presentation is well organized, clearly presented, free of grammatical errors and delivered with good attention to audience;
presents at least three events that have personal significance and explains the significance with rich detail;
uses a memory cue clearly associated with each personal history event.

2: This response includes the following:

presentation is organized, clearly presented, with few grammatical errors, delivered with attention to audience;

presents at least two events of personal significance and explains the significance including some details;

uses a memory cue associated with each event.

1: This response includes the following:

presentation lacks organization, is unclear with little attention to audience, and may have many grammatical errors;

presents only one event with little detail and little or no explanation of significance;

lack of memory cues or inappropriate artifacts for the event.

0: None of the above or off topic.

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