Cold War Two History Discussion Worksheet

Cold War Two History Discussion Worksheet

Question1 

STEP 1: Read the Principles and Best Practices (Links to an external site.) of conducting oral history interviews by the Oral History Association. You might want to take some notes, or print the page and add some highlights. You will need this for Step 2.

STEP 2: Skim through the transcript of an interview with Bill Taylor (Links to an external site.). [If you are interested, here is a short biography of Taylor (Links to an external site.) that gives you some context.] The beginning of the interview is interesting (how does the interviewer initiate the conversation?) and I would suggest paying attention to the way in which Taylor describes the political spectrum at Brooklyn College during the McCarthy era. A passage that might be of interest starts like this:

AB: Well, it’s interesting to hear you describe the different professors ’cause it gives you a sense of …

BT: Right.

AB: … kind of the political range.

While reading, pay special attention to the ways in which the interviewer engages with the interviewee: how do they steer the conversation into the direction that they want it to go? Pick one interviewer-interviewee interaction, cite it verbatim (copy, paste, no citation necessary), and analyze it by answering these questions:

Where in the interview is the passage located (beginning, middle, end, turning point, transition between 2 topics….)?

What kind of interaction are you analyzing? Does the interviewer interrupt the narrator? If the interviewer asks a question, is it a yes/no question or an open ended one?

Evaluate the interaction. Do you think the interviewer interacted in the best possible way with the interviewee? Why, why not? How else could the interviewer have led the conversation in this passage?

Question 2

Read this excerpt from Brinkley’s Unfinished Nation (pdf )on the interpretations of the Cold War.

 

PLACE THE ORDER WITH US TODAY AND GET A PERFECT SCORE!!!