Our conversations with each other at holiday gatherings can be tense. Sometimes those interactions become heated and, even, angry. This year, we have an opportunity to focus our conversations differently. This year, Americans are invited to join in the second annual “Great Thanksgiving Listen” to add our personal stories to our nation’s history.
The “Great Thanksgiving Listen” began in 2015 as a national education project designed to engage youth in conversation with their grandparents and other elders. Last year, more than 100,000 high school students and elders from all 50 states participated in this project and provided their interviews to the archives at the Library of Congress. This year, we are all invited to join in.
The questions are designed to help us learn about our past, and the hopes and values that have guided our elders. Some of the suggested questions are:
- What was your childhood home like? What did your bedroom look like?
- Who else lived in the house with you? What were they like?
- How has your life been different than how you once imagined it would be?
- Can you tell me about someone who had a big influence on you life? Would you tell me about some of the most important lessons that person taught you?
These interviews will be kept in the StoryCorps archive of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. They will also be available at the StoryCorps.me website. Through these interviews, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as historians, will be able learn more about our country’s history in the words of those who have lived it.
To learn more about this project and find the recording instructions, go to: https://storycorps.me/about/the-great-thanksgiving-listen