Suggested Methods

1. Pass out the handout that contains narratives from the towboat pilot, commercial fisherman, and farmers, and evaluate narrative techniques. How might these narratives look different if they were written for publication rather than transcribed from a tape? What does the transcription of the narratives suggest about differences between describing a situation verbally and writing it down? Would you rather read the transcriptions or hear the narrator tell them?
   
2. Discuss the kinds of information imparted through narrative.

Student Activity

1. List some of the skills that are learned from someone else and through experience, as opposed to learned from a textbook. For example, Jack Libbey not only needs to know the size of his tow, but he needs to be aware of how the current is running; John Duccini can find the deep holes in a river by looking at where the water changes color; Bruce Williams has an idea of how factory farming will impact his family farm operation; and Karmen Mehmen knows the value of her farm’s crops and the consequences of a natural disaster on those crops.
   
2. Read the handout “Milk Fever,” a personal experience narrative by veterinarian Dr. John W. Sutcliffe from Audubon. Personal experience narratives are first-person narratives based on a real incident in the life of a teller. Dr. Sutcliffe published a book of his experiences. Memories of an Iowa Veterinarian includes numerous descriptions of the occupational practices of a veterinarian in the southwestern part of the state.
   
3. Ask students to interview each other on the work culture of a job or voluntary work they once did. They should tell a story about their work. Then have students write down their own story. Discuss the differences between oral telling—as with job colleagues—interviewing after the fact, and writing it down.

Home/Community Connection

Invite parents or relatives of students into class to talk about their occupations. Students should devise a set of common questions—such as about the first day on the job, most memorable event, worker customs and culture, technical vocabulary, famous/infamous co-workers—to provoke occupational narratives that can then be analyzed and compared.

Student/Senior Citizen Exchange

Senior citizens hold a wealth of information that has come from years of job experience. An interesting activity could be to compare how seniors talk to each other about their former trades, and how they tell students and younger people about their work. They may find that, with their peers, there is some shared knowledge about history, the land, economics, and people that may require further explanation when presented to other generations.

Initiate an occupational story swap in which the student and senior tell their own personal experience narrative using the same openers. These could include: “On the day I started my job . . . ,” “My most embarrassing moment at work was when . . .,” “The hardest thing I had to learn was . . . .”

		Photo
		LESSON 2.4
	John Duccini maneuvers a hoop net for catching Mississippi catfish and perch off the side of his boat. What kind of occupational secrets might John Duccini have for laying a net?
				PHOTO BY JANET GILMORE