Second of a two-part series. More photos at bottom of story.
Ada High School College Preparatory English students, in a class taught by Melody Veltri, (Part 1) were challenged with the question: "What do you believe?” The assignment continued with an oral history segment, which follows.
Rielyn Castle, created a 47-minute video with her grandfather, Willard Castle of rural Ada, now in his 80s.
Rielyn discovered that her grandfather moved with his family from Kentucky when he was 7. He had 10 brothers and sisters. The family moved south of Ada and worked on an onion farm.
She was unaware of this. And, at first she was hesitant to become involved in the project – but it soon became an eye-opener for her.
After focusing on excerpts from “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, and NPR’s Story Corps, other Ada HS College Prep English students, like Rielyn, embarked on their own oral history discoveries this month.
Melody Veltri, teacher, said that she didn’t want to make the assignment just a history project. She wanted more - she wanted students to create a visual or audio account of an interview with someone.
That interview could focus on family history, or someone who lived through a certain period. Interview options ranged talking with parents, grandparents, pastors, professors, retirees…you name it.
In several cases, the result meant sitting down with grandparents and hearing about the issues in their lives.
It also meant talking with teachers to discover how they carried on through certain periods of their own lives.
In the end students learned first-hand through the interview process about the different perspectives and experiences of "the things they carried" from people in Ada.
