Lesson Plans
Lesson Plan: Artifact Interview (Grades 3-5)
This lesson plan guides elementary school students through an oral history interview about an artifact or object of personal significance.
Cultural and Personal Identity • Education • English Language Learners • Storytelling Best Practices
Lesson Plan: Getting To Know You Interview
This single lesson plan supports students to have relationship-building conversations in preparation for successful oral history interviews.
Lesson Plan: Family, Culture, and Traditions Interview
This single lesson plan prepares students for an oral history interview with a family or community member about culture and traditions.
Cultural and Personal Identity • Education • English Language Learners • Storytelling Best Practices
Oral History Resource Guide For English Language Learners
Voice of Witness’s education program develops curriculum that directly supports students in migrant, multilingual, and English Language Learner communities. This guide contains activities, handouts, and reading strategies to make oral history accessible to students at all language levels.
Cultural and Personal Identity • Education • English Language Learners • Migration & Displacement • Storytelling Best Practices
Beginning Again: Stories of Movement and Migration in Appalachia Curriculum
These lessons explore oral histories that examine the complexities of why people leave, why people stay, and and the systems that interact with individual choice. The curriculum is rooted in an Ethnic Studies framework that questions dominant narratives and promotes critical thinking around not only the Appalachian region, but migration and displacement in general.
How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America Curriculum
The lessons use oral history to promote a nuanced understanding of Indigenous communities and settler colonialism.
Criminal Justice • Cultural and Personal Identity • Economic Justice • Environmental Justice • Gender Justice • Migration & Displacement • Racial Justice
Palestinian Voices Lesson Plan
This single lesson plan is designed to center first-person narratives and provide an entry point into discussion on the war in Gaza and Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
Advocacy • Cultural and Personal Identity • Economic Justice • Migration & Displacement • Political Oppression & Civil Rights
The Power of the Story: The Voice of Witness Teacher’s Guide to Oral History
This comprehensive guide allows teachers and students to explore contemporary issues through the transformative power of oral history, and to develop the communication skills necessary for creating vital oral history projects in their own communities.
