Using Online Video Oral Histories to Engage Students in Authentic Research

Abstract

This article describes the authors’ experiences using a videotape collection of Holocaust testimonies in an advanced undergraduate writing course and argues that creatively designed multimedia projects based on video oral histories are uniquely suited to engage millennial students in authentic research. Along with describing the course and its assignments, they assess the ways that work with video oral histories helps student build the research skills and informational literacy they need for life in the twenty-first century.