Artifact Interviews

Students will research a historical person or event and retell the story as an animated interview with an artifact from that time or place.

Engage

To help get beyond facts and dates, let students know that they will be telling history through an interview with an object, or artifact, from a specific time or place. Choosing an object will help them connect to a point of view and consider the questions behind the events, not just the events themselves.

Have students choose a person or event they would like to explore further. Before choosing an object, students should collect information about the event and begin taking notes.

Ask students to begin with the 5 W’s (who, what, when, where, how).

5 W's Organizer

To keep these from turning into the questions and answers in the interview, ask students to take this information and craft an introduction to the artifact being interviewed.

The research process isn’t designed to find the answers, but to help students determine the questions to ask, and more importantly, determine why this person or event is worth being studied.

• What are the issues surrounding this event?
• Why do we remember this person?
• What big idea will the viewer take away or learn from this interview that goes beyond the facts or information?

Create

Explore and share a few examples of personification with your students and then work together to personify an object in your classroom. Brainstorm feelings the object might have about itself or how it is used. To help students better "become the object," ask them to complete an empathy map.

Empathy Map

Ask students to reread their research notes and brainstorm a list of artifacts from that time or place they could personify to tell the story. Have them write a list of character traits that make sense for each particular object.

Character Trait Organizer

Once they have chosen an object, students should return to their research and begin to craft the questions they will ask the object. They should work to craft questions that elicit responses that go beyond the facts, such as: “What made you...?” and “Why did...?” and “How did you feel when...?”

Once the list of questions is complete, students should begin crafting the answers the object will give. These answers should reflect the character traits they identified and include the object’s feelings and actions during events.

Students can use an interview template to get started crafting their animated interview.

Interview Template

Have students use the drawing tools to create an illustration of their character. The Widget Library also includes a set of Talkie faces that have animated mouths they can use to make an object talk.

Share

Have the students present their animated interviews to the rest of the class. Invite other teachers or local historians to help evaluate the final products.

Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts

Literacy in History/Social Studies - Reading Theme

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.1
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.6
Identify aspects of a text that reveal an author’s point of view or purpose (e.g., loaded language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts).

Writing Theme

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.2
Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.2a
Introduce a topic clearly, previewing what is to follow; organize ideas, concepts, and information into broader categories as appropriate to achieving purpose; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., charts, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.7
Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.