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| Mrs.
Tarver's senior English classes will be using the Federal Writers Project
as their inspiration for this year's term paper.
Traditionally seniors have done their research reports on local history or
events that affected local history. They have used primary sources
such as microfilmed Greenwood Democrat, archive files of other old
newspapers, files of school memorabilia and personal interviews. They have
used secondary sources including books that have been written about
Greenwood and the south Sebastian county area and articles in The Key
magazine. Back issues are available at the high school library media
center. The Key has been published annually since 1963 by the
South Sebastian County Historical Society, and was indexed by the GHS
library media staff in 1996.
Some of the past projects have resulted in a model of the Greenwood square as it was in 1900 and a yearbook style book that collected the top papers for a three year period on the history of the area included in the Greenwood School District. This year seniors are going to create primary sources. These primary sources will be in one of the formats used in the Federal Writer's Project - Life Histories, Personal Interviews, Guidebooks - with background material. Students must first explore the formats in the Federal Writers Project. Then research the general events of the 1920s, 1930s,1940s or 1950s - both national and local. Students will narrow their topic to a time range within 1920-1959 and a subject that affected local history. Based on their research they will formulate appropriate questions, and interview a person who lived during that time period. Interviews of local interest will be kept on file in the high school library. |
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| Step One: GHS senior English students will
become familiar with the Federal Writers Project, be introduced to oral
history research, and explore the
American Memory website. The Federal Writers Project was part of the Works Progress Administration. During the Great Depression of the 1930's, the WPA employed over 6 million American professional and non-professional writers who collected the life histories of over 10,000 Americans of diverse socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. Many of these stories and interviews are available at the Library of Congress - American Memory website. Explore the site, especially the following examples of primary sources.
If you have a faster connection at home, listen to narratives of people who were interviewed Voices from the Days of Slavery or read books written during this period
Students will recognize the scope of the Federal Writers Project and recognize that most of the material retained and preserved for Arkansas centered around Little Rock and Hot Springs. A more recent attempt to record Arkansas history was the Arkansas Memory Project that was kept up for two years.
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Step Three: Formulate your questionnaire of
open-ended questions designed to allow the person you are interviewing the
opportunity to tell his/her story. Take into consideration
Story Arts: Collecting Family Stories and
General
Guidelines for Conducting an Interview
Original WPA
Questionnaire
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| Step Four: Set up your interview. Preferably
you could tape the interview. Pictures of the time period would be greatly
appreciated to go with the articles. They can be turned in to the library
to be scanned, please either pick them up or provide a mailing address so
they can be returned to the owners. Assignment: Interview the person you have chosen. Prepare a preliminary outline of your research paper. Expository Writing Read and take notes on the time period you researched and your interview. Assemble the notes and write the final outline. Write the first draft. Write the revised final draft with footnotes and the bibliography
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