Oral evidence and Memoirs
Oral Evidence: Here children learn that we can learn about the past from interviewing people or listening to stories form parents and grandparents. They will listen to an audio recording which describes writing in the past . This is supported by pictures of ink, an ink pen and an ink well. Here also children will learn about school in the 1920's in rural Ireland. Children should also conduct their own interviews locally to see whether the experiences are similar or different to those portrayed in this unit. The teacher guidelines for history contain useful directions about how to structure interviews and how to collect evidence. Central is to record the name of the person who is telling the story and to record the date on which the story is told. Children should also list the questions which they would like to ask. They should limit these. An example of an interview template can be seen in the First and Second Class Homes History unit.
Memoirs are explained. Children listen to extracts from memoirs which convey information about recollections about school. There are also written extracts from memoirs.. A few extracts which feature recollections of schooling are featured. This allows children to see some similarities in the experiences of different people. Extracts form the memoirs of well -known authors such as Alice Taylor and John McGahern are included as well as the recollections of a city dweller.
Children also learn about autobiographies and biography.