Lesson Introduction and Overview (Instructor)

This project is an example asynchronous classroom lesson informed by AudiAnnotate’s “An Introduction to Annotating and Presenting Sensitive Audio Using AudiAnnotate” lesson, both created by Bethany Radcliff and Kylie Warkentin. Students will work with the “‘Criminal Syndicalism’ Case, McComb, Mississippi (Side 1)” recording from the John Beecher Sound Recordings Collection at the University of Texas’s Harry Ransom Center throughout the course of the lesson.

To use this project as a lesson, students will navigate to the project page and, starting with “1. Considering ‘Criminal Syndicalism’ Audio,” complete each step and the activities listed therein chronologically. Instructors should complete all the steps listed in the “Before the Lesson” and read through the full outline of the lesson below. Though this introduction has been written with the instructor(s) in mind, each activity is written to prompt students firectly. After students complete all the steps in this project, instructors will upload student annotations to AudiAnnotate in their own project (see “Adding Student Work to AudiAnnotate” for steps on how to do so).

For additional resources regarding working with sensitive audio in the classroom, see “Additional Resources” at the bottom of the page.

Before the Lesson

About the Audio

In this lesson, students will be working with the “‘Criminal Syndicalism’ case, McComb, Mississippi (Side 1)” from the John Beecher Sound Recordings Collection at the University of Texas’s Harry Ransom Center.

Though this information is reproduced above the lesson clip in this project, we recommend instructor(s) share the following information about the audio with students in advance of the lesson so students may be better prepared to work with the sensitive material or express any discomfort that may prevent them from engaging with the lesson.

Recording Description: This recording was recorded October 19, 1964 by John Beecher and his wife, Barbara. The recording begins with John Beecher and members of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) meeting with Black high school students and their parents after these students were released from jail in McComb, Mississippi on charges of criminal syndicalism, in which it seems the students have been falsely accused of damaging property by throwing a brick. Beecher speaks with the group about the importance of voting and fighting for equal treatment in the voting process. A white arrested member of COFO discusses how his experience in jail was different than that of the Black students, how he was released without bond, and that his release was sooner. The students discuss the conditions in the jail and the treatment by policemen and guards. The parents of the students discuss how they were given limited interaction with their children, and how officers made visits a challenge.

Description of Clip Used in Lesson: The clip we will discuss in class is 14:07-15:37. In this portion of the recording, Beecher asks the students if they had recreational privileges while in jail, to which the students reply they could not even leave the cell. Beecher asks about food given to them in prison, which the students say was often cold pork and beans from the can, and that they were denied coffee, and given a small breakfast. The students also discuss how the guards/officers were dismissive of their singing and would threaten to drag their mattresses out and make the students sleep on the concrete if they continued sleeping.

Audio Content Warning: In this recording, a racial slur is used at 16:06 by a student quoting the language said to them by a police officer while in jail. There is also explicit language used at 15:49, 16:30, and 16:39 by students quoting white police officers. Listening to the second side of the recording is not necessary for this lesson and will not be discussed in this lesson, but as a warning, it includes multiple racial slurs, at 4:58, said by a white man; at 5:48 by a man quoting a police officer; at 7:00, 7:04, 7:08, 7:09, by a woman quoting a police officer; at 9:15 by a man quoting a police officer; at 11:42, 11:57, and 12:32 by a woman quoting a police officer. Explicit language is also used by a woman quoting a police officer at 10:48.

Be sure to provide your students with the link to the “Lesson Clip from “‘Criminal Syndicalism’ case, McComb, Mississippi (Side 1)” for students to listen to before class. You may also choose to share with students this fully fleshed out Beecher recording project, created by Bethany Radcliff and Kylie Warkentin.

Adding Student Work to AudiAnnotate

Access AudiAnnotate’s documentation to:

Create a GitHub account. You will need this to login to AudiAnnotate.
Create a project in AudiAnnotate. This project will host all your student groups’ annotations for the Beecher “Criminal Syndicalism” recording.
Create item(s) in AudiAnnotate. We recommend you create one item per student group.
Familiarize yourself with general functions and best practices of AudiAnnotate. Depending on the skill level of your class, you may choose to have students create their own GitHub accounts to work with AudiAnnotate directly or you may upload and present group annotations by yourself. This lesson is written with the latter in mind, but can be easily adapted for students to follow the same steps in the documentation to work directly with AudiAnnotate themselves.

Sample Lesson Plan: Beecher Criminal Syndicalism Case, McComb, Mississippi (1 hour)

Description

Students will understand the processes and philosophy behind audio annotations, with the possibility of presenting annotations using AudiAnnotate. Students will learn about the annotation process, and instructors will be provided with documentation on how to create an AudiAnnotate project.

Note: Instructors may choose to either focus lesson on thinking through the annotation process and reserve uploading annotations to AudiAnnotate themselves, or they may have students create GitHub accounts and work on presenting their annotations in a project in AudiAnnotate themselves – this lesson plan includes both options. We have also included a potential extension activity using Hypothesis to workshop and comment on student annotations (see “Extension Activity: Commenting Using Hypothesis”).

Targeted Lesson Guidelines

(Modified from Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy) Interpret, Analyze, and Evaluate

Critically evaluate the perspective of the creator(s) of a primary source, including tone, subjectivity, and biases, and consider how these relate to the original purpose(s) and audience(s) of the source.
Situate a primary source in context by applying knowledge about the time and culture in which it was created; the author or creator; its format, genre, publication history; or related materials in a collection.
As part of the analysis of available resources, identify, interrogate, and consider the reasons for silences, gaps, contradictions, or evidence of power relationships in the documentary record and how they impact the research process.
Factor physical and material elements into the interpretation of primary sources including the relationship between container (binding, media, or overall physical attributes) and informational content, and the relationship of original sources to physical or digital copies of those sources. Demonstrate historical empathy, curiosity about the past, and appreciation for historical sources and historical actors.

Lesson Goals

Instructors will:	Students will:
Introduce students to thinking through audio and the annotation process using primary source materials.	Understand the unique challenges and opportunities that accompany working with audio, particularly that of a sensitive or challenging nature.
Discuss the context of the chosen audio and provide a content warning, emphasizing the challenges and opportunities that accompany working with challenging or sensitive audio.	Apply what they’ve learned about using audio by generating annotations for the Beecher clip, preferably in groups.

Key Questions

How do modern researchers work with archival audio materials, particularly if they contain sensitive content still felt keenly today?
How can creating and eventually presenting annotations add to researchers’ meaning making with primary source audio archival materials?

Helpful Resources for Lesson

Link to item marking lesson clip of Beecher recording
Method to record annotations (e.g., Google Sheets, Excel Spreadsheet, paper, etc.). You may choose to use this template provided by AudiAnnotate for creating annotations in Google Sheets.
(Optional) Hypothesis account

Lesson Plan Agenda

1. Considering ‘Criminal Syndicalism’ Audio (6min)

How do I think critically about and work with audio? Where do I listen for and make meaning in audio?

Reiterate content Warning.
General experiences listening to audio.
What do you want to know more about?

2. Analysis and Potential Annotation Routes (20min)

How do we discuss and annotate this audio? What are some potential annotation routes?

If it is necessary to break the lesson up into multiple days, this activity would be a good stopping point.

Social/Historical Context of Recording.
Relisten to the Lesson Clip and Note Observations.
Consider Potential Annotation Routes.

3. Further Analysis and Annotation in Groups (8-10min)

Relisten to the clip.
Decide on categories for annotation and begin generating annotations.

4. Presentation (8min)

Here, instructors should offer evaluative comments.

Extension Activity: Commenting Using Hypothesis (10min or homework)

Additional Resources

Working with Sensitive Archival Material:

AudiAnnotate’s An Introduction to Annotating and Presenting Sensitive Audio Using AudiAnnotate, created by Bethany Radcliff and Kylie Warkentin
Metadata language when working with potentially sensitive archival materials (from Archives for Black Lives)
How to Handle the Hate in America’s Musical Heritage (NYTimes article about Dust to Digital, the record label/archive that recently was set to release an album which included some racist folk songs, they ended up removing the tracks with racial slurs.)
Furious Flower lesson around Sonia Sanchez’s poem, “Catch the Fire.” (How to situate audio in context.)
Studs Terkel Classroom resources

Classroom/Education Resources (Emphasis on Trauma-informed Pedagogy):

Social Annotation:

Chapter 6 of Annotation, by Remi Kalir and Antero Garcia, discusses how annotation is used as a classroom learning aid for both students and teachers. This chapter focuses on annotation as a valuable part of anchored discussion in classrooms, but also how annotation is something that can be intimidating to students at first.
This tweet links to a great lesson on social annotation
Kalir, J. H. (2020). Social annotation enabling collaboration for open learning. Distance Education, 41(2), 245-260.