ORAL HISTORY LESSON PLAN

VII. Follow-up Questions

Your oral history will only be good if your transcript is good, if your interviewee told great stories in your interview.  Even professional journalists go back and interview people many times to get the information they need.  Today you’ll go through a few steps to determine if you need to ask a few more questions to really portray your interviewee’s story well.  You will add on to your interview with the answers to the follow-ups.

Reading for Follow-Ups
These three steps should be done by you, by a peer in the class, and by an adult in the class.  Just a note – make sure each person who reads your transcript uses a different color of pen or pencil, so you can remember which comments came from which people.

Step 1: Finding the highlights
The reader (you or your peer or an adult) will read the transcript, looking for the best parts, the stories that really stand out.  The reader should put a star (or some other happy mark) by these parts.

Step 2: Finding the incomplete stories
The reader (again, you or your peer or an adult) will then look for the parts of your transcript that left him/her wanting more.  These are going to be places where your interviewee said something interesting, but didn’t really go into detail, or where the reader just wants more information or details.  The reader should put a check mark by these places.

Step 3: Brainstorming follow-up questions
Now the reader will think about questions that could lead to the information he/she felt was lacking.  In the margins of the transcript, or even on the back, the reader will write possible follow-up questions. 

Remember, your transcript will go through steps 1, 2 and 3 three times, with you, a peer and an adult.

It would be great if you could brainstorm questions together with the other readers.

Finalizing your transcript

Step 1: Re-interviewing
Decide what information you really want to get, and which follow-up questions would be good ones to start with.  Then, you can do a follow-up interview.

Step 2: Adding to your transcript
Follow the steps on the “Preparing Your Transcript” worksheet to add to your transcript.  Go back to your transcript file you saved, and start typing! You can simply add every word that you and your interviewee said at the end of the first transcript you typed.  It’s okay if the ideas seem out of order, as we’ll move ideas around later.