FRANKFORT — Kentucky Poet Laureate Silas House has launched a free K-12 curriculum called “Listen Now! An Oral History Project,” providing students with valuable insights into oral history and fostering a deeper appreciation for the arts.

As a child, House was always around older people. He listened to the stories they told and learned to value those relationships. After Gov. Andy Beshear appointed him Kentucky Poet Laureate in 2023, House was inspired by those earlier experiences to create Listen Now! An Oral History Project, a curriculum rooted in cross-generational relationship building for K-12 classrooms.

“The joys and sorrows of the older generations serve as examples for us to learn from, to emulate or, perhaps even more useful, to avoid,” House writes in an online letter to teachers introducing the project. “As age segregation becomes more ingrained in our culture, what cycles will be repeated, what misconceptions will flourish?”

The online curriculum is a tool to create opportunities for cross-generational conversations between students and community elders, including grandparents, aunts, uncles and neighbors. House’s methodology offers the student interviewer and the interviewee time to get to know each other and learn from each other’s experiences, and it provides an opportunity for the student to learn community stories from someone who lived them.

“The generational divide is nothing new, of course, and it may only continue to grow. According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, the elderly population will more than double between now and 2050. Before then, we’ll have to decide if it’s better to ignore a huge chunk of our population or if we will embrace everything we can give to one another,” House states.

Included are guidelines for completing an oral history, interview suggestions and a recorded message from House. There are also ideas for teachers to share the stories and resources to assist in preserving and archiving the projects.

Teachers interested in learning more about the Listen Now! curriculum are encouraged to review the material online and include it in their lesson planning. House recommends that the original recorded interviews be transcribed and maintained together as part of the final assignment.

The Kentucky Arts Council is hosting the Listen Now! curriculum on its website at artscouncil.ky.gov. Within the site, teachers are asked to complete a brief survey and may request a virtual classroom visit from Kentucky Poet Laureate Silas House.

In 2023, Gov. Beshear appointed award-winning author Silas House as the 2023-24 Kentucky Poet Laureate. The announcement was part of the Kentucky Arts Council’s Kentucky Writers’ Day event hosted in the Capitol Rotunda in Frankfort.

For more information, contact Tamara Coffey, arts program branch manager, at tamara.coffey@ky.gov or 502-892-3121.