Changing Neighborhoods

An Oral History Workshop for the Brooklyn Young Adult Literacy Program

Abstract

In this field report I share my experiences of teaching an intergenerational oral history course I created as part of the Young Adult Literacy Program (YALP) in Brooklyn, New York. This workshop, which ran from mid-May to late June 2014, grew out of a—still ongoing—research project that focuses on the history of Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and adjacent neighborhoods. The course combined the practical application of oral history techniques with theoretical analysis of the results. Students were interviewed about their experiences growing up in historically underserved areas and, in turn, interviewed older members of their respective communities to map change and continuity. The interviews served as a teaching tool for my students and as primary sources for my research project. Through being interviewed themselves, my students learned about the characteristics of good interviewing as well as the characteristics of being an effective source.