This oral history project challenges you to select a person over the age of fifty-five and ask her/him about what life was like in the past. Your interview can focus on a particular era such as the Great Depression (late 1920's and 1930's) or World War Two (1939-1945). You may want to focus your questions on the Civil Rights Era in Texas (1940's through the 1970's) or life during the Cold War (post-1945 until the late 1980's). Many Americans participated in wars in Korea (1950-1953) and Vietnam (1964-1973). Others remember the Vietnam War Era with a homefroont perspective. Perhaps, your interviewee would like to discuss the changes of a woman's life in the twentieth century. Her-story belongs with His-tory. Chicana women are active leaders in San Antonio. Your interviewee may be a first generation immigrant. Why did she leave her nation of birth and come to America? What factors contributed to her emigrating? What obstacles did she face in becoming an American? Many an immigrant came to the United States looking for employment and performed migrant labor. What were working conditions like in the fields? Did children remain in school?

Your perspective interviewees may have been children during the topic they choose to discuss. Childhood memories about the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War are still vivid to many a grandparent. Did those eras change their lives and how their families lived? How were they changed?

Are you at Palo Alto College to follow in your grandfather's or grandmother's career footsteps? Are you training for a job in being a railroad employee, telegraph operator, cobbler, blacksmith, watchmaker, switchboard operator, milkman, glovecutter or a pecan sheller? Probably not. All of those jobs are rapidly becoming vanishing occupations. Millions of twentieth century Americans today earned their living in occupations that don't exist anymore. Many retired individuals, who worked those jobs, live among us in the community. They have a story to tell us about a bygone era of work. You may decide to interview a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker. How many vanishing occupations can you name?

In recent years, there has been a push to internationalize the curriculum. We are told Americans know little about the rest of the world. At the same time, local history is ignored. The students of Mr. Robert Hines's Small-Town Texas History Projects provide a neglected voice from our rural American past. Do you know someone who grew up in a small Texas town? What new light can s/he shed on life in Texas? And let us not forget, the city where Palo Alto College is located- San Antonio. Many a grandparent was born, raised, and lived their entire life in San Antonio. What can you learn from them about growing up in San Antonio?

There are many oral history subject choices. Inform your perspective interviewee about the various topics available, and ask which one s/he would like to share stories with you about that past. Time is fleeting. When an old person dies, a library burns down. Lets harvest the past from our elders. They have much to teach us.

• Bring a labeled USB port to class.
• Select an Individual over the age of fifty-five to interview. The person must agree to be recorded (audiotaped &/or videotaped) and allow the interview to be shared with your classmates & future Palo Alto students.
• Discuss and decide with your perspective interviewee what will be the focus of the interview. (e.g. immigration, growing up in San Antonio, Great Depression, vanishing occupation...)
• Set a time and place for your interview
• Submit a page biographical paper on your interviewee including information his/her full name (maiden surname for women too), date of birth, names of parents, number of siblings, where born and raised, places lived, educational level achieved, occupations performed, if married- full name of spouse, when and where married, number of children, and other items of interest regarding religious and political affiliation, socio-economic status, military status, hobbies, and the interviewee's connection to the topic and to YOU (e.g. relative, friend, neighbor, colleague...).
• Research the topic of the interview
• Submit an annotated bibliography with a minimum of five sources
• A fine resource for Texas history, culture, and geography is The Handbook of Texas Online.
• Collect photographs and/or documents from the person
• Create a minimum of twenty questions relevant to the interview topic. (One of your last questions must be- Is there anything else you would like to add?)
• Interview the person
• Have the person sign the Interview Agreement Release Form
• Transcribe the interview
• Make a mimimum of FIVE links to your interview on the USB port
• Submit an analysis of the interview. Answer these questions:
  -What did you learn from doing this interview?
  -What were the most important points made in this interview?
  -What did you learn about your interviewee that you did not know before?
  -How did the interviewee express her/his feelings- not only in what was said, but how it was said?
  -What did these stories teach me about the topic?
  -How did you attempt to verify the stories told to you?
  -What are the benefits and drawbacks of learning about the past through the interview process?
  -Overall, is this an effective way about learning about the past? why/why not?
  
• Place all the information on to your USB port in HTML format
• Present your Oral History Project to your classmates (minimum 10 minutes). Click here for: Classmate Evaluation Form
  
• Review your classmates' evaluation forms of your Oral History and make the appropriate corrections on to the disk
• Submit the USB port, the classmate evaluation forms, and the Interview Agreement Release Form to the instructor
• Relax

1. Insert your Floppy Disk in the A Drive
2. Click on Start
3. Go to All Programs > Accessories
4. Go to Notepad and click
5. Click on File
6. Cilck Open
7. Change My Documents to 3 1/2 Floppy (A:)
8. Change File of Type: to All Files
9. Double Click on OHTemplate
10. Maximize OHTemplate

1. Click on a Browser
2. Click on File
3. Click on Open
4. Click on Browse
5. Change My Documents to 3 1/2 Floppy (A:)
6. Double Click on OHTemplate
7. Click on OK