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Thanks for the Memories |
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By Marybeth Miller In our town, Ernie washes windshields at the local gas station and gives away suckers to kids; has for decades. Ernie rides his bicycle in every parade with all the kids in town-he is the one with the whistles, sirens and badges from all the local police and fire departments. It’s a short walk to the gas station from The Castle, the adult foster care home. Ernie comes to work every day, where he greets people, “Hi, what’s your name? I’m Ernie.” In our town, John was a rabble-rouser in the mid-60’s, racing hotrods through town every night. . .until he came back from the 101st Airborne seriously wounded. Starting from scratch, he became a successful businessman, and dreamed up the “Helluva Cruise” that raises thousands of dollars for local charities. He’s now the unofficial mayor of Hell, Michigan, where you can find him most days welcoming hundreds of families who take a ride to Hell. In our town, young Blondie married her sweetheart who was shortly thereafter chosen to be our town’s first fire chief. For 53 years, before the days of 911, it was her voice that sounded the alarm when the old red emergency phone rang in the middle of the night: “Station 1 Hamburg! Hamburg Station 1! Respond to fire at . . . .” Every community has unique people with unusual stories. It’s critical to capture their history while they are still able to share it. Seventh graders at Pathfinder School in Pinckney, MI are working to interview elders from our community in order to capture personal memoirs. These individual strands are what weave America’s tapestry. Here’s how to begin adapting the ideas for your students. Overview Students use online research, digital video cameras, and I-Movie to create living history videos. The videos include interview, facts, and popular music from the past. Projects will be shown on the community television channel and a copy will be given to the public library for their archives. · This project encourages all students to learn in a non-traditional way and is designed to interest reluctant learners. · This project covers state curriculum standards for 7th grade English Language Arts in all four strands: reading, writing, speaking, and listening/viewing. Objectives: · Students will produce a segment on living history video for thelocal cable channel and for the archives of the public library. · Students will practice by interviewing each other. · Students will participate in preparatory work including viewing instructional PowerPoint, reading, and writing a memoir. Student Activities: The project is based upon Kathie Nunley’s Layered Curriculum design. (www.brains.org;http://Help4teachers.com) Its design allows students to select their own personal level of involvement in the unit, assuring that those conducting interviews intend to put forth an exceptional amount of effort. Layer C: Basic Memoir Unit · View PowerPoint presentations on characteristics of memoirs. (A memoir is a true story about an event that helped shape you into the person you are today.) · Read memoirs (selection from Roald Dahl’s “Boy: Tales of Childhood” in literature book, and others, including a novel.) · Complete Venn diagram comparing you to the protagonist in selected memoir. · Write a personal memoir. Layer B: Intermediate Level · Learn interview techniques and critique good/poor examples of interviews. Watch Oprah segment (or other talk show) while it’s muted to look at body language, eye contact, and camera work. · Listen to 7+ interviews on Story Corps and take notes summarizing what you hear. (www.storycorps.net) · Using StoryCorp guidelines and questions develop preliminary interview question list. · Interview another student for practice; save any outstanding work for living history video. Layer A: Advanced Challenge · With a group, brainstorm list of people to interview; town historian, Holocaust survivor, VFW president, member of 1st family to settle in town, etc. · Invite participants-ask them to focus on one event in their personal history. Request that they bring photographs of themselves of the area from that time period if possible. Refer them to the StoryCorp questions. · Research the time in history they select. · Conduct interview, download, edit, incorporate facts, photographs, and music in introduction and conclusion. Create and include title segment and credits. Write press release and thank participants. Write personal reflection on project. Invite friends for “television premier”. Timeline · 6 weeks. Students were given the option to work outside of regular school hours to edit. · Anticipate that the amount of time depends upon how many students accept the challenge of A Level work since equipment is shared. Research was conducted on media center computers when our computer was in use. · While the A Level projects are being created, other students may choose to finish B and C level work, read silently for required reading log of work on vocabulary. Suggestions · Middle school students need an extraordinary amount of time to interview each other to get used to the excitement of the project and the operation of the equipment. Hold them to a timeline of 15-20 minutes for student practice videos, and discourage creating outtakes. This assignment uses valuable time, but will help them see how to improve their real interviews and tone down their excitement levels. · Anticipate that they will use 45-60 minutes for each guest interview, and that they will be delightful to your guests. · I-Movie is intuitive; even student groups unfamiliar with it can produce a basic segment by learning from each other. · Be certain that students review their rough footage to choose exactly which segments they want to use. They should download only those segments from the cameras rather than all their footage so that the size of their file is manageable. · You should work with I-Movie first, but do not hold your students back. Use I-Movie Help on toolbar (getting started is great!) and refer your students to it. Try taking an intro class through your local ESA, ISD, REMC, or school district. · Find a good location for interviews. We learned the hard way that an empty classroom converted to a conference room was horrible acoustics. A small, carpeted room without noisy blowers or humming fluorescent lights is best; possibly one in which camera angles could already be established so you don’t end up with heads cut off as we did for one interview. · Be flexible, have fun, and trust your instincts. Resources · Our all equipment, which was supplied by a grant from MACUL: · 2 Digital video cameras · 2 wireless microphones (StoryCorp recommends another type) · 2 Tripods-essential when working with middle school students and cameras · 60-min MiniDV tapes (10 pack) · E-Mac Superdrive computer Additional items: Scanner, firewire History Websites: www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory www.news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/years/default.stm Music sources: Garage band software on Macs create your own music www.royaltyfreemusic.com/free-music-resources.html Other resources: Theodosakis, Nikos. The Director in the Classroom. San Diego, CA: Tech4learning.2001 ISBN: 1930870116 www.thdirectorintheclassroom.com “This American Life” favorites on National Public Radio: www.thislife.org/radio_Favorites.aspx Fair Use Copyright info www.techlearning.com/db_are/archives/TL/2002/10/copyright.php Marybeth Miller teaches English language arts and journalism to 7th and 8th graders at Pathfinder School in Pinckney, Michigan. She holds a Masters Degree in Education and she has completed a certificate in educational technology. Reprinted with permission from MACUL Journal Spring/Summer 2008, www.macul.org
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July, 2008
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