Oral Histories

Middle School (Grades 6-8)

Students listen to the testimonies of Jews from Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Morocco, learn to read oral history the way historians do, and honor each speaker with an acrostic poem built on evidence.

Objectives

Oral history is the study of the past through the spoken memories of people who lived it. Since 2010, JIMENA’s Oral History Program has recorded the testimonies of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, preserving memories of family life, language, food, music, and holidays, as well as experiences of persecution, displacement, and rebuilding. In this lesson, students work as historians: each group listens to one testimony from Libya, Egypt, Yemen, or Morocco, records evidence, asks who is speaking and why, checks the story against historical context, and compares all four communities before honoring the speaker with an evidence based acrostic poem.

Essential Questions

  1. What can we learn from the personal stories of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa that we cannot learn from a textbook?
  2. How can we describe Jewish life in these communities, and why did most of these communities leave?
  3. Why is oral history important, and what are its limits as a historical source?

Students will be able to

  • Explain what oral history is and how it differs from written records.
  • Listen closely to a testimony and record specific evidence with minute marks.
  • Source a testimony: who is speaking, when, to what audience, and why.
  • Corroborate a testimony with historical context and compare four Jewish communities.
  • Write an acrostic poem in which every line is supported by the testimony.

Curriculum Connections

  • Social Studies (C3): D2.His.4.6-8, D2.His.10.6-8, D2.His.16.6-8
  • ELA: RH.6-8.1, RH.6-8.2, SL.8.2, SL.6.1 through SL.8.1
  • Jewish Studies (Jewish settings): Pirkei Avot 1:1; the Oral Torah; Sephardic and Mizrahi heritage

Materials

At a Glance

Grade and setting: Grades 6 to 8, public, independent, and Jewish schools; adaptable for grades 9 to 12
Time: Two 45 minute class periods
Source: Adapted from Journey to the Mizrah

Note to teacher

Preview all four videos. The speakers share warm memories of home as well as anti-Jewish violence and the fear of leaving; let students know in advance that some stories are painful. Turn on captions. Gina Waldman’s video is a public talk rather than an interview, which gives students a chance to ask how setting and audience shape a source. If devices are limited, watch all four together and assign each group one speaker to track.

Downloads

  • Lesson Plan  Full lesson with teacher background, vocabulary, assessment, and differentiation (PDF)
  • Appendix A  Listening Guide (PDF)
  • Appendix B  Acrostic Poems: examples and worksheet (PDF)
  • Appendix C  Context Cards for the four speakers (PDF)
  • Appendix D  Student Interview Guide (PDF)

Day 1. Introduction (15 minutes)

  1. Main questions (2 min). Write the essential questions on the board.
  2. What is history? (3 min). Students write a one sentence answer and share; note common ideas.
  3. How do we know? (5 min). Students tell a partner a story about themselves as a baby. Ask: How do you know it happened, if you cannot remember it? Someone transmitted the story to you.
  4. Chains of memory (5 min). In Jewish settings: read Pirkei Avot 1:1, “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets, and the prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly.” Why list a chain of names? What is your link in the chain? In public school settings: discuss how communities around the world, from West African griots to Indigenous nations to families at a holiday table, pass history on by voice. What is gained, and what can change?

Day 1. Listening Like Historians (30 minutes)

  1. Oral history as a source (5 min). Build a chart. Strengths: daily life, feelings, languages, food, neighbors, voices missing from official records. Limits: told years later, one point of view, memory can blur, setting and audience shape the story. Historians respond by sourcing and corroborating.
  2. Listening to our elders (2 min). Read aloud: communities around the world, including Jewish communities, have passed on history, law, and values by word of mouth. In Jewish tradition this is the Oral Torah, learned be’al peh, “on the mouth,” and Sephardic and Mizrahi rabbis passed on commentaries, rulings, stories, and proverbs this way for generations.
  3. Expert groups (5 min). Four groups each receive one context card (Appendix C) and complete Part 1 of the Listening Guide (Appendix A).
  4. Watch and record (12 min). Groups watch their testimony once through, then again, pausing to record evidence and minute marks in Part 2.
  5. Think like a historian (6 min). Groups complete Part 3, then agree on the three most important things classmates should know.

Day 2. Comparing Communities (15 minutes)

  1. Jigsaw. New groups of four, one expert per testimony, share for two minutes each and complete the comparison chart in Part 4.
  2. Discuss. What can these stories teach that a textbook cannot? Why might two people from the same country remember differently? What would we lose if these stories had never been recorded?