People say that talking to your plants can make them grow, and the same is true for community trees. Oral history is a technique for generating and preserving original, historically interesting information – primary source material – from personal recollections through planned recorded interviews. It is important for us to recognize and acknowledge community members, family elders, and mentors that carry history/ies that are worthy of being shared and deserving of further exploration. 

Students will create a digital “cajita” inspired by an oral history interview and personal artifact from interviewee. Students will curate their own archive based on stories from a member of their community. For this project, students will conduct an interview/planned conversation to collect oral history from a member within their community based on an artifact. The interviewee will share an artifact in the form of a photo, video, or physical item of their choice and retell the story/significance of the artifact in an interview/conversation with the student. The artifact will serve as the foundation of the interview/conversation – this way, dialogue can flow naturally between both parties. Students will upload the audio/visual interview, along with a 350 word rationale/description of the conversation, and a digital “cajita” to our class’ Blogs @ Baruch webpage. 

This is a creative project! So, be creative!!