My "Local History"

Based on my Reading from Kammen, I would pick the environment of my school that I went to from preschool to senior year of high school. More specifically, I would pick my graduating class. If I had the time I would like to know the stories of my classmates. If they, like myself, went to Lisbon Community School for their whole life, and if not where else they went. I would also like to know how they feel they got to where they are today. I would like to know what everyone is up to now, and how they like what they are doing. I wonder how well Lisbon prepared each individual for whatever they are doing today and if they took full advantage of this situation. I am involved in a lot of various activities now and I was in high school. It was easy being that I came from a small school. Part of me wonders if people kept to being involved in everything as they continued on from Lisbon or if they were overwhelmed by the transition.
In order to gain all of this information, I would of course need to contact all of my classmates. I think it would be a lot less time consuming if I came up with some sort of survey that they could complete with open ended questions and send it back to me. It would not be as gratifying because I would love to see most of my classmates, but with my hectic schedule it would be a lot more feasible.

I think I would run into a lot of obstacles. One might be my classmates not being willing to complete the survey or talk to me. Another obstacle could be that they would think it was a joke or not really care about it so they would not take me seriously. While reading Kammen, I never realized that being biased or not telling the whole truth had such a big influence on the writing or history and the correctness of it. I think I would have difficulties not being biased based on perceptions I had in high school. I also think I would select information to use in my “history” and according to Kammen, selection is not good while writing history. One needs to tell everything. They need to tell about the good and the bad, the successful and the unsuccessful. I believe that I would have trouble talking about my classmates being unsuccessful or running into certain troubles in life whatever that may be. I know I do not like to talk about the bad in life but I like to focus more on the good things that have happened. Therefore, I do not think I would be able to write a good local history.

To complete this project, I would have to put all of my emotion aside and really focus on the project at hand. That would give me the best result. I would have to forget who I was friends with and who I was not, perceptions I had, and focus on the good and bad information I receive so that I can tell the whole truth in my “local history.” I would also have to put forward a huge effort in order to receive truthful information from my classmates and make sure that everyone completes the information I need in order to complete this project.

I think that my writing would be fairly informal. That is how my class was and I think it would give the best portrayal of who we are. I would put the necessary footnotes in that are needed based on the criteria that Kammen describes so that all my classmates would be credited for their contributions. The more I talk about this “local history,” the neater I think the project is. I am very interested in what my classmates are up to and would think this would be worthwhile, of course if I had the time.