American history oral interview

Paper 3 – Each student will conduct an oral history interview on an issue of contemporary relevance.  Interview family members, reflect on their own experience, and summarize their findings in an argument-driven paper.  The assignment asks each student to consider how people’s experiences and perspectives vary across space and time, and recognize that many contemporary problems can only be resolved by listening carefully to what people say about their own experiences.

Your paper will not be the interview itself, but about the interview and the subject material.  You can include quotes from your subject.  Relate the story of your subject to historical issues; i.e. immigration, race inequality, deindustrialization, Jim Crow, segregation, US involvement in Central and South America and the Caribbean, war, etc...

This paper will be evaluated based on the following:

• Really listen to the subject.
• Engage with different perspectives on a controversy.
• Demonstrate a detailed historical understanding of the controversy of choice.
• Reach a resolution on that controversy.
• Present the evidence and argument in a clear, coherent way. 
• Minimum 1500 words.
• Thesis-driven.  
• Secondary and Primary sources encouraged to place your interview in historical context.
• footnote citations