Assignment 1
Choose 2 or 3 individuals (famous or otherwise) with whom Studs Terkel conducted interviews (at least one needs to be spoken). Write a 2-page essay analyzing what you learned from the interviews and comment on anything that surprised you. Also consider Terkel’s style of engagement with the interviewees and any differences detected between hearing and reading oral histories.
This assignment is due during Session 3.
Oral History Assignment
For this assignment, you will conduct a taped oral history / interview with another individual and submit a 2–3 page, double-spaced written account of that interview and a partial transcript.
More details about the oral history assignment
This assignment is due during Session 6.
Museum Exhibit Design Project
The goal of this exercise is to gain experience working with primary materials in a variety of media formats and to begin thinking about how one would design and put such material together in order to suggest both a “story” for possible viewers and an analysis or interpretation of the material. We’ll be working with materials from the all-volunteer Southeast Chicago Historical Museum.
More details about the museum exhibit design project assignment
This assignment is due during Session 10.
Final Paper
Write a 2–3 page book review of one of the books from the final section of class (Old Money; Hunger of Memory; or Returning to Reims). Explore what the book can teach us about social class in the United States. You may also choose a book that highlights class
issues from a region outside the U.S.
This assignment is due during Session 14.
