Engaging Communities and Classrooms: Lessons from the Fox Point Oral History Project

This article presents graduate students' reflections on two community oral history projects, focused on Fox Point, a Providence, Rhode Island, neighborhood. Through the Fox Point Oral History Project, graduate students in public humanities at Brown University work with community elders and with students, parents, and teachers at a neighborhood elementary school to document, preserve, and present local history. In the essay, graduate students describe how their work has changed their sense of connection to the local community and allowed them to apply social media and digital scholarship on behalf of community history projects. The authors also describe the impact of this work for elementary school students and community members who participate in oral history projects.