or this project you are to find an individual who is at least one generation older than you, conduct an oral history interview, then write the “story” of their life. You are to use the standard oral history interview format, an example of which is provided in the attached Oral History Association guidelines. As part of the Oral History Project, you must provide a typed transcript of the interview questions and responses to show that you followed the proper format. Using information obtained during the interview, you will then write the “story” of your individual. This will be the easy part. The transcript has no page requirement other than that it obviously must be long enough to serve as the basis for a 5-7 page essay. The “story” paper must be typed, a minimum of 5 FULL pages to 7 pages in length, double-spaced, 12-point font, with reasonable margins. The Oral History Project is worth 100 points, 50% of which is the interview and typed transcript and 50% is the 5-7 page essay. The project must be submitted no later than 8:00 AM, May 6. This project offers an excellent opportunity to really get to know someone in your life, to learn history from a living, breathing source instead of from a textbook. NO LATE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT WILL BE ACCEPTED.
Transcript Format: The transcript should be single-spaced and generally conform to the following format. There are no length or page requirements, but it obviously must be long enough to write a 5-7 page essay. All of the information in the transcript does not have to be included in the essay, you can choose what you want to focus on. However, the essay should not contain information not included in the transcript, since that will tell me that your transcript is incomplete. In typing the transcript, you can include notes (in parentheses) about the interviewee’s emotional state, body language, your impressions, etc. that you can integrate into the essay.
Interviewer: Jane Doe (JD)
Interviewee: Sally Doe (SD)
Date of Interview: July 6, 2017
JD: Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed, I’m really excited to get to know more about your history. Would you tell me what your full name is and where you were born?
SD: You are quite welcome; it is an honor to be part of your project. My name is Sally Forsythe Doe, and I was born in Itaugua, Paraguay on August 14, 1933.
JD: Paraguay – I did not know that!
SD: I know, it’s sort of an unusual place to have been born.
Essay Format: Just use a standard essay format. It should be double-spaced with reasonable (default) margins, using a 12-point font, and 5 FULL pages – 7 pages in length (longer is ok, shorter is not). The essay can be written in the first or third person. You are telling the story of your interviewee’s life, their personal slice of history. You can add historical context if it seems necessary and you can include observations from the interviewee. For example, if your interviewee started smiling when relating a particular memory, you can put that in the essay. You are encouraged to include photographs that represent your interviewee’s life, but they do not take the place of regular text pages. The transcript records what was said in the interview, the essay is your interpretation of what was said. You are the storyteller, so make your interviewee’s history come alive
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