Day 2: Oral History

Goal: Students can define oral history and articulate why it is an effective way to capture moments of great change.

Text focus:  Secondhand Time pages 19-32

Journal Question: What do you think an oral history is?

After students write for a brief period, discuss to arrive at or near the following definition: technique of interviewing witnesses to an event and recording their words directly.

Alternatively: Have students watch the following video focusing on Secondhand Time and write answers to the questions "How does Alexievich write her books?" and "Why does she use oral history?"

Hand out copies of Chapter 1: Snatches of Street Noise and Kitchen Conversations (pages 16-38) to each student.  Teacher should have students skim the text and identify the following text features:

• Headings: explain topic
• Ellipses: show where words or phrases have been left out
• Dashes: indicate a change of speaker
• Footnotes: give information specifically for English language readers, explain concepts that a Russian reader would probably know but Americans probably do not
• Italicized paragraphs: direct statements from the author, not from interviews

Think-aloud: Teacher may want to read aloud the first two pages of the chapter, modeling how to use footnotes and using context clues to interpret unfamiliar vocabulary. 

Small groups or individual work:

Instruct students to divide a piece of notebook paper in four parts.  Assign students to read pages 19-32.  While reading, they should fill the four parts with notes:

1. List five changes that Soviet people experienced through the fall of the USSR.
2. List three questions you have.
3. Draw a picture of an image from the text.  Write the relevant quotation underneath it.
4. Explain three ways the oral history is different from a newspaper article.