Module Overview
Watsonville is in the Heart team members Meleia Simon-Reynolds and Ian Hunte Doyle are interviewing Dana Sales about his father’s barbershop which was once located on Main Street in downtown Watsonville.
About this Module
Oral histories are a strategy for integrating diverse voices and first hand experiences into research and scholarship. A community-centered approach to oral history stresses the importance of working collaboratively and being responsive to the needs of the narrator sharing their memories.
Foundational to all oral histories scholarship is the concept of informed consent:
- Ensuring the narrator has a clear understanding of the scope and purpose of the oral history project.
- Ensuring the narrator understands their role and their right to ask questions or halt the interview at any time.
- Using a consent form signed by the interviewer and the narrator that reflects this shared understanding.
This module provides step-by-step instructions for how to prepare to conduct an oral history interview, how to record using Canvas Studio, and how to turn in the resulting recordings and documents using Canvas:
- Planning for the interview
- Recording using Canvas Studio
- Creating a transcript
- Sharing the results with the narrator
Overview of Topics Covered
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What is an Oral History |
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Informed Consent |
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Planning for Interviews
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Recording Oral Histories Using Canvas Studio
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Putting it all Together |
Note: This module covers how to conduct oral histories to be shared in a class and only between a student and their instructor. It does not cover how to conduct oral histories that would be preserved in an archive or made accessible to the public.
Learning Outcomes
Through this module, students will be able to:
- Discuss oral history as a field of study and method for gathering memories from people and communities.
- Explain informed consent and a community-centered approach to oral history.
- Design an oral history, including planning, recording, uploading, transcribing, and sharing.
This module was adapted from materials from the University of California Irvine Library's Oral History Toolkit Links to an external site., San Francisco State University's Labor Archives Research Center Links to an external site., and University of California Santa Cruz's Watsonville is in the Heart Links to an external site..
Vo Dang, Thuy, Krystal Tribbett, Jolene Beiser, Elvia Arroyo-Ramirez, and Audra Eagle Yun. Oral History Toolkit Links to an external site.. Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine Libraries.
"Oral History Lesson Plan Links to an external site.." Watsonville is in the Heart, The Humanities Institute UCSC.