ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a plethora of ways to assess students’ knowledge through oral communication beyond the traditional full-class presentation. Oral communication is as important as written communication in conveying historical knowledge and the advantage of oral communication is that it asks students to make an argument and garner evidence to support it while also listening to each other, asking questions, and answering questions. Of the oral communication assessments, student-led lessons are the most difficult to prepare since essentially the readers need to teach them some discussion protocols and strategies. The chapter provides guidance and examples for assessing students through: podcasts, panel, roundtable, or fishbowl discussions, debate, oral history interviews, gallery walks and museums, and student-led lessons. A number of consequential works of oral history appear online and in transcribed textual format. Oral history occupies an interesting space in the larger field of history.
