Sample SL Application - History

Lane Community College
Service Learning Application
Kevin D. Hatfield / History 203

1. Revised Existing Course
    
2. Publication/Announcement: “Are you tired of learning history only from a text book? Would you rather enjoy a unique opportunity to interview an historical subject and create your own original primary source? Would you like to explore the actual voices, memories and experiences of living “historical actors” (55 and older) who eye-witnessed significant events and eras in our past? If so, this introductory survey offers you a “hands-on” apprenticeship in the historian’s craft. Students will actively participate in performing oral history, generating a post-interview transcript, composing an analytical essay, and delivering an oral presentation. The essays will allow students to place their interview within the context of the broader themes and questions of the course. Also, the interviews will enhance the assigned readings, and provide an engaging example of how the life of an individual reflects, reinforces, challenges, or contradicts the discussion historical topics in our text and lectures. Past students have interviewed a diverse range of informants, from a real “Rosie the Riveter” who worked in the Kaiser shipyards during WWII to a former Japanese American internee at the Tule Lake Camp, and “Downwinder” cancer survivors who lived in Southern Utah adjacent to the Nevada Atomic Test Site. If you would enjoy contributing to oral history in our local community consider enrolling in History 203.”
    
3. History 203: United States Twentieth Century
    
4. Solvang Retirement Center; Eugene Good Samaritan Society/Washington Abbey; Oasis Education Center Life Stories Project/Oral History
    
5. Students will perform oral history interviews with volunteer subjects. This valuable interpersonal, human contact reduces loneliness and isolation for many long-term retirees and residents of limited-care facilities. Students will receive careful instruction in oral history etiquette and techniques prior to visiting. Although students will be researching a particular historical question or topic, interviews are always conducted in an un-intrusive, open-ended, thoughtful environment that ultimately allows the interviewees to share their invaluable life stories. This experience fosters relationships between two community groups–college students and retired citizens–who rarely have opportunities for social interaction. The printed transcripts generated from students’ notes and memories–as well as audio tapes when approved by both parties–represent original and significant primary sources. These transcripts will be made available to the interviewees for their personal enjoyment and distribution to family and friends. If interviewees release their interviews to the public, they can also be deposited with oral history collections at local, county and state historical societies and archives. These mutually enriching interactions create a priceless family artifact for the interviewees’ descendants, while contributing to our collective knowledge of America’s past. Student community service will be evaluated on their preparation of questions; their overall performance during the interview; the composition of the post-interview transcript; and their follow-up contact with the interviewee. Sadly, the chances to interview members of the generations who lived through the Great Depression, New Deal, WWII, Japanese Internment, Red Scare, Cold War, Native American Termination, Korean War, and Civil Rights Movement are declining every year. This community service helps capture these memories before they are lost.
    
6. All students will be required to perform an on-site oral history interview with a volunteer subject at least 55 years of age. Most students will interview residents of the community agencies listed above, however, those students who identify a legitimate “historical interview subject” within their family, neighborhood, or community may work with those individuals. The parameters and evaluation of the oral history project will apply equally to all students.
    
7. See question 5 above.
   
8. The oral history project cultivates a learner-centered environment that encourages active learning, student participation, and collaborative exercises. The oral interview and transcript complements the traditional primary and secondary sources students examine in an introductory-level history survey. This project engages students in a dynamic process of reconstructing the past, and reduces their role as merely passive receivers of information. Students will essentially conduct temporary apprenticeship in the historian’s craft, with “hands-on” experience actually “doing history”. Students will contextualize their interviews within the broader themes and questions of the course by composing an analytical essay that draws evidence from assigned readings and the source they have created. These reflective essays will consider how the life experiences of their historical subject represents, challenges, illuminates, or complicates the explanation of relevant topics discussed in the text and other readings. Finally, each student will deliver a brief oral presentation at the end of the term, sharing the results of their interview and essay with their peers. The emergence of social history over the past 35 years has established oral history as a legitimate primary source equivalent to more traditional manuscript records. From Studs Terkel’s Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression to Vicki Ruíz’s Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950 oral history has expanded our knowledge of traditionally neglected ethnic, racial, class, and gender groups in American history. Students’ interviews will contribute to this discourse. Student interviews will contribute to this growing body of research.
    
9. This course strives to emphasize learning through “comprehension” and rather than “rote memorization”. Students will learn factual content by analyzing historical questions of “causation”–cause-and-effect relationships–and “agency”–the power of both individual historical actors and non-human forces to influence change and continuity over time. For example, students receive “guided notes”, comprising lecture outlines and PowerPoint slides, previous to the lectures that contain specific names, dates, and statistics. These materials help students focus on the “big picture” and grasp the major “historical questions” and themes of the Twentieth Century. The oral history project offers the potential to strengthen this pedagogical strategy by asking students to learn both the “content” and “process” of history partially through the life of a living subject. The interviews can also clarify the relevance of history to the present and the everyday lives of the students. Their analytical essays present an exercise that develops students’ critical thinking, expository writing, oral communication, and source analysis–an invaluable skill set with inter-disciplinary and cross-occupational application. The creation of an original primary source represents a powerful learning experience for students–raising their sense of investment in the class, responsibility to classmates, and pride in their own work.
    
10. I will evaluate my success as an instructor base on the following criteria:
     
    1.) Was I able to coordinate a mutually enriching interview for every student?
     
    2.) Did the interviewees enjoy their experience? Informants will be invited to complete a feedback card following their interviews.
     
    3.) Did the students’ knowledge of history (both content and process) grow during this course, primarily as a result of the oral history project? This will be reflected on their interview questions, written transcript, analytical essay, and oral presentation?
     
    4.) Do the student evaluations indicate that the oral history project enhanced the course and their individual learning experiences?
    
    5.) Do long-term relationships (individual and institutional) between students and interviewees or LCC and the community agencies develop from the oral history project?
    The oral history I performed with the descendants of Basque immigrants for my doctoral dissertation, illuminated elements of the historical narrative that textual records from the national, state, and county archives would have failed to uncover. I have continued this oral history research as I prepare the manuscript for publication, and I hope to share this rewarding process with students through the oral history project.
    
11. I am a volunteer history speaker at the Solvang Retirement Center and have come to know many of the residents well. I have been working with the events planner/coordinator at Solvang during my time there, and will collaborate with her on this project if approved. The other agencies identified above have published materials indicating their interest in participating in oral history projects. However, I do not have personal connections with these agencies, and would need to initiate those as part of the instructional development for revising this course.
     
12. First, the oral history project would require the short-term use of digital or analog audio recorders. For example, UO students and faculty can check-out such equipment on a one-day loan from the media services department. I have not verified if LCC has similar resources. The students would only need the recording devices for a 24 to 48 hour period. If students use analog records, the class would likely need about 30 micro-cassette tapes, or another media that matches LCC equipment. Second, I would like to prepare brochures explaining the purpose and process of the oral history project for distribution to agency managers/coordinators and potential interviewees. This preliminary communication often proves critical to the success of the oral history project. These brochures elaborate upon my personal contact, and allow interviewees to voice any concerns they have before a student arrives. Having a written explanation of the project to refer to promotes mutual trust and helps establish a rapport. This request might include the printing of about 50 brochures.
     
13. I would like to submit a request for the 25-35 hours of curriculum development support suggested by Jennifer von Ammon. I estimate the following allocation of development time:
     
    1.) 20 to 25 hours: Redesigning the course syllabus and developing the oral history project assignments and handouts.
     
    2.)10 to 15 hours: Performing off-campus agency visits, to explain the project and establish the groundwork for future student interviews.
     
    3.)5 hours for preparing the oral history project brochure for the community agencies and their residents.
     
14. Not applicable. Revision of existing course.