Madman as Hero - Oral History Project 2018

Post date: Oct 16, 2018 10:59:19 AM

Ms. Staley - Mr. Gang - Mr. Smith

Essay due Friday, Dec. 14th

During the past three years in social studies at Barlow, you have studied the work of historians. The tables are now turned, in this project you ARE the historian. Scholars assemble their interpretation of the past by collecting and analyzing available evidence, giving special attention to the recollections of actual participants in world events. This is your chance to literally make history.

In this project, you have both the privilege and the duty to keep the history of World War II and the Holocaust alive. Already, the memories are fading. Take for example a troubling survey from the Anti-Defamation League in 2014 which found that of 53,000 people surveyed in over 100 countries, only 54% of respondents have heard of the Holocaust. Of this group, 32% believe the Holocaust is a myth or is greatly exaggerated. The work you do for this project is critical in affirming the hard-earned wisdom of “the greatest generation”.

Timeline:

On War and Remembrance Day (10/18): Bring your notebook and record select quotations from the veterans and survivors, along with their names for purpose of future citation, that you can use to inform and shape your subsequent project. To retrieve exact quotes, click here to see video of our guests speaking.

Step 1: Interview and Reflection -

Please complete ONE of the following options:

1a: World War II Experience: Interview someone who has LIVING MEMORIES of World War II. This individual can be a veteran, a Holocaust survivor, or a civilian who remembers living during World War II. You must have evidence of the interview. The evidence can be audio, video, or a written transcript AND MUST BE SHARED WITH YOUR TEACHER. You also must be able to revisit your interview later in the process. If you record, please ask for permission from your interviewee to do so.1b. Post-World War II Experience: Interview someone who had DIRECT EXPERIENCE in a post-World War II military engagement (ex. Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, etc.). This individual can be a veteran, refugee, survivor, or a civilian who had or has DIRECT EXPERIENCE with wartime engagement. You must have evidence of the interview. The evidence can be audio, video, or a written transcript AND MUST BE SHARED WITH YOUR TEACHER. You also must be able to revisit your interview later in the process. If you record, please ask for permission from your interviewee to do so.

Interview Questions: Please conduct an interview using at least twenty questions (that must approved by your teacher), particularly using ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ to uncover the motives, actions and consequences of the people at the time. Do not forget to ask about the family and friends of the interviewee in order to gain a fuller perspective. Your interview questions will be due AT LEAST 24 hours before your scheduled interview, which will show your teacher you were prepared to ask sophisticated, quality questions. If you are having trouble developing at least 20 questions, please see one of Madman as Hero teachers ASAP.

“C Path”: The minimum requirement is that you have the name of the person you are interviewing, their role (if any) during World War II, and submit 20 questions for approval. If you complete these objectives, you will earn up to a C on this checkpoint.

“A Path”: If you want a chance to earn an A on this checkpoint, you should also submit preliminary research that you conducted in order to develop your list of questions. You should properly keep track of the sources you used for a works consulted page in order to show evidence that you adequately completed this step. You may also consider completing a “pre-interview” where you ask some VERY BASIC questions in order to have more substantial questions for your actual interview.

Interview conducted by 11/2: Please submit or share an audio, video (ex. Google Drive, YouTube, MP4, MP3, etc.) or written transcript of your interview with both questions and answers to your teacher. Your documentation of the interview needs to be word for word in its entirety. A summary or “a highlight reel” of the interview is not sufficient. IT IS HIGHLY ADVISED THAT YOU TEST THE AUDIO/VIDEO EQUIPMENT BEFORE YOU CONDUCT THE FORMAL INTERVIEW TO ENSURE YOU DOCUMENT IT EFFECTIVELY!

    • If you are recording your interviewee, you must get their consent before recording the interview. If your interviewee does not want to be recorded you must write a full written transcript of the interview.

Step 1 Reflection: Along with your Interview, please submit a reflective piece with clear, concise action steps that will drive Step 2 and your research. Here are two samples in order to help start or guide your reflective piece and action steps:

1a Sample Follow-up Inquiry

    • Ex. My great uncle talked about life on the homefront in the United States. I wonder if civilians all over the world experienced what my great uncle experienced during World War II.

1b Sample Follow-up Inquiry

    • My neighbor talked about a roadside attack that he experienced in the Iraq War and how he was air recused to a hospital. I wonder how injured soldiers were taken off the battlefield in World War II.

Sample Follow-up Questions

    • What was life like for German children during World War II?
    • How was the daily life of a typical German similar or different from my uncle?
    • What was school like for German children?
    • Did children in Germany need to ration as much as in America?

Sample Action Steps

    • Fact check what my Uncle said about U.S. school systems
    • Look for a specific secondary source interview of people who were children in Germany during World War II.
    • Research wartime economics in Germany during World War II

Sample Follow-up Questions

    • How were injured soldiers cared for in World War II?
    • What types of injuries were experienced in World War II? How are they similar or different to current wars?
    • How does technology play a role in the types of casualties?

Sample Action Steps

    • Fact check what my neighbor talked about and find out what hospital he went to
    • Look for a specific secondary source interview of a World War II veteran who was injured in battle.
    • Research casualty rates in both wars.

Step 2: Secondary Interviews - Contextualize your Interview by 11/9

The purpose of Step 2 is to help you narrow the scope of your research. Please choose two full length interviews from the Online Resources listed below. The resources you select should be inspired by your reflective piece and action steps you outlined at the end of Step 1. You should should take both factual and reflective notes as you listen to watch additional source interviews.

Ex. Factual Note: “- Injured while storming the beach at Normandy on D-Day”

Ex. Reflective Note: “- The battles in the Iraq War used more guerilla tactics and were not as formal as in the Battle of Normandy. Were there guerilla tactics used in World War II?”

ONLINE RESOURCES:

World War II Veterans:

Library of Congress Veterans History Project

Central Connecticut State University oral history project

University of Nevada oral history archive

Natvets1 Youtube channel

Central Illinois World War II stories Youtube channel

National World War II Museum oral histories

New York State Military Museum youtube channel

Holocaust survivors:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

University of Southern California / Shoah Foundation - Visual History Archive

Library of Congress audio recordings of Holocaust survivors

University of South Florida Holocaust survivor oral histories

University of Hartford, Hartford Remembers the Holocaust

Voices of Hope, another Connecticut group collecting testimony

Testimony on the experience of twins

Along with the submission of your additional interview notes, you will also need to update your Step 1 Reflection. You also have the option to create a new Reflective Document in the same format. You should show that you have narrowed down your topic by updating and/or adding to your Action Steps. It is suggested that you reflect on what you still need to find, what you still want to know, and more importantly, how you plan to find the missing variables.

* If you are having difficulties narrowing down your topic, it is highly suggested that you speak to one of the Madman as Hero teachers.

Step 3: In-Depth Research, due 11/30

The purpose of this step is to deepen your understanding of this small window of history so you can create new learning and share it in a written piece (Step 4). In order to tackle the research, we encourage you reflect on what resonated with you. What themes emerged in the interview? What lessons can you distill from the past to inform the present future?

Step 4: Reflective Essay, due 12/14

You will be responsible for synthesizing Steps 1 - 3 in a reflective essay. Your essay should be driven by a non-obvious lesson or take-away that you learned over the course of the project. Your lesson should be authentic, concise, and meaningful.

Whatever you end up creating, the interview and all additional research must be properly cited (documented in the text or credits with a complete and properly-formatted works cited) in a written essay. Using formal tone OR an editorial-type tone, you must somehow formally analyze the information you have learned and draw your own conclusions from it. YOUR WORK SHOULD NOT BE JUST A SUMMARY OF WHAT THE PERSON SAID, IT SHOULD SEEK TO DERIVE NON-OBVIOUS LESSONS & MEANING FROM HISTORY. PERSUADE YOUR READER OF THE WISDOM OF YOUR LESSON USING THE INTERVIEW AND RESEARCH AS EVIDENCE. WHY DOES THIS INFORMATION MATTER?

We will use the school's complexity rubric to assess your findings during an in-class seminar discussion following the completion of the final paper.

If you are having trouble getting started, consider using Mr. Smith’s famous “Wisdom from History” for guidance:

Turn the insight (you learned from the interview and subsequent research) into a principle we can use: For the most important of these actions, turn the idea into a rule, principle or maxim that we should use today. Your rule needs three critical features, applicability, relevance, and utility:

A. Applicability: Your rule must be broad enough that it could apply to any time or place.We seek timeless human wisdom that has relevance across continents and the ages. By that I mean, your rule would be good advice for not only ancient Spartans, but also medieval China, and contemporary Brazil. For example, if we were writing about Hitler, you could say that the lesson would be that, "a responsible society should not classify people by race." Someone else studying contemporary Germany might write, "to be prosperous, a responsible society should be generous to their neighbors."

B. Relevance: We are looking for rules that will be useful for us to confront today's challenges.Therefore, please look for rules that would not be obvious to someone who has not studied this era. Use the "well-duh" test to see if your rule passes. If you can prove using properly-cited quotes from reliable journalistic sources that there are substantial numbers of people living today who do not yet follow your rule, it is non-obvious.

C. Utility: While your rule must be broad enough to accommodate all human societies, your rule must also be specific enough to draw a clear line between what is acceptable and what is not. This is a delicate balance. What do we need to do (or avoid doing) in order to stay within the moral boundaries you are attempting to set? If your rule has this problem, the solution is to reflect and ask yourself what concrete actions or policies can we take (or avoid) to make sure that the "good thing" happens again or that the "bad thing" is avoided?

Honors students should include the following:

5. Recent social science research, journalism, and anecdotes proving how acting on your policy position would improve lives.

Scoring and criteria:

If your essay simply summarize the stories from all of the sources above, you get a "D." If you retell the stories and cite them correctly, you get a "C." If you use the the stories with a story of cause and effect, you get a "B." If you use the history to establish not just cause and effect, but also use that knowledge to defend a position on a policy question, you get an "A." This rubric lays it all out for you.

Timeline:

Fri. Dec. 14 - Essay due on turnitin.com

Mr. Gang

Class ID: 18264216

Password: barlow1819

Mr. Smith

Class ID: 18264558

Password: verrucht1

Ms. Staley

Class ID: 18264217

Password: Staley