Use sources that come from different perspectives. Give learners the opportunity to understand the issues from different viewpoints, to explore the thinking of people that made decisions that affected their ancestors’ lives. Relocation, sending children to residential schools, and the killing of sled dogs are just a few examples of difficult historical issues that might arise in the course of an oral history project. Read documents that show the RCMP position, the church position, the government position, as well as the position of people who lived through these events.
Encourage people to move beyond blame or condemnation to exploring the thinking of the people involved. Use questions like the list in #2 to gain insight. Try to understand the social situation and commonly held beliefs at the time of the event.
Quick-writes – writing in journals for ten minutes at the beginning of a literacy session can be a good daily routine. Quick-writes improve writing luency and help people develop their ideas on an issue. Literacy group members could respond to questions that arise from their research, or they could respond to artifacts, a recorded interview, video or guest speaker you’ve recently seen.
Explain the process to the learners: The idea is to write quickly without planning; just get the ideas down as they pop into your brain – don’t worry about the perfect way to express yourself and deinitely don’t worry about sentence structure or spelling. Just write as the thoughts come – stream of consciousness!
As the literacy facilitator, you may find it helpful to ask permission to read the quick-writes to gain an understanding of how your literacy group is thinking and feeling about the issues that come up in your project. It may show you gaps in understanding and give you ideas on other approaches to add to your project. Consider using dialogue journals, in which you respond to the writings of the group members, creating an ongoing conversation.