This lesson is adapted from a use-case developed by Bethany Radcliff and Kylie Warkentin. This page serves as an introduction to annotation as a method for understanding sensitive audiovisual resources. While much of this lesson will focus on engaging with sensitive archival material in individual or group settings, it may also be read as a general introduction to annotating with AVAnnotate.

Introduction

In this lesson, students will learn how to create and present annotations using AVAnnotate, focusing in particular on working with sensitive archival material. This lesson will guide you in thinking through and creating annotations and how to use AudiAnnotate to collect and present those annotations. Students will need to set up a GitHub account in order to use the AVAnnotate application. You might prefer to download an open-source application such as Audacity to assist in generating annotations with time-stamps in the steps below, but, alternatively, you can also mark time-stamps manually on a spreadsheet by making a copy of the AVAnnotate Quick Start template.

Audio Considerations

Though any publicly-accessible sound can be used with AVAnnotate, many historical recordings contain sensitive content that students and teachers often find difficult to discuss. We have structured this lesson in a way that seeks to be mindful of trauma-informed pedagogy when working with sensitive resources. Trauma-informed pedagogy, developed by Janice Carello and Lisa D. Butler, emphasizes the importance of ensuring the physical and emotional security of learners by emphasizing the importance of contextualizing content and acknowledging and validating any challenges learners face when working with sensitive materials. Importantly, the goal of trauma-informed pedagogy is “to remove possible barriers to learning, not to remove traumatic, sensitive, or difficult material from the curriculum” (Carello & Butler). Likewise, we believe the unique challenge of working with sensitive materials should not deter anyone from learning from them. A trauma-informed approach to working with these materials allows both independent researchers and groups of researchers to empathetically and carefully work with materials others may have difficulties with that are nonetheless important to history.

In general, when selecting the audio material with which you’ll be working, you should review the holding institution’s language in describing and categorizing the audio for cues in handling, listening to, and ultimately presenting your chosen audio material. While some holding institutions may not have content warnings or descriptions of sensitive content for individual items, other institutions will have some kind of acknowledgement of troubling content or metadata listed either on the holding institution’s main site or collection page for the item. We recommend you look towards these places for language cues first (see Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia’s (A4BLiP) “Anti-Racist Description Resources”). For example, the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin contextualizes the Beecher Sound Collection, but at this time does not include a specific content warning related to the racist language in the tapes. The Ransom Center’s statement on outdated language shares a general warning that users may encounter sensitive, offensive, or outdated information in descriptions of archival materials.

Classrooom Suggestions

The first step to annotating audio is listening to the whole recording before listening to any selections to understand the context of the recording (though in the classroom setting, we recommend listening to a short portion of the tape. See note below). Listening is a different method than reading or watching and will accordingly require different methods of approach with different demands on time and attention. As you might carefully read and re-read a passage in close-reading, audio requires close-listening.

For audio with sensitive moments, listening can present a unique challenge. By pressing play on an audio recording, you become a sort of “witness” to the moments taking place in the audio. Communication and media theorist Amit Pinchevski, writing about audiovisual testimonies of Holocaust survivors at Yale’s Fortunoff Library, acknowledges the place of the listener as witness and says unlike text, the recordings “impose on the audience a complex audio-visual narrative, which calls for the development of collective skills of interpretation and active engagement” (p. 258-259). Further (as with other kinds of media), exposing listeners to potentially sensitive or upsetting material with no warning may forcibly shift their focus from the material to their reaction provoked by the difficult content, making any new learning nearly impossible (Hammond).

We encourage you to structure lessons in a way that is aware of this mode of listening and witnessing, and acknowledge that the potential of trauma is an important thing to keep in mind for listeners. Introducing students to AV materials can involve bringing them into conversation with the historical and social context of the material, and, where necessary, providing a content warning noting where in a recording difficult content occurs (time stamps), and the context prior to any discussions of listening and annotating. Many archival materials have connections to the present that can be unsettling or surprising, particularly if the same sorts of trauma described or captured in the recording is something listeners are still experiencing today, and how students experience the listening process can directly inform their experience of annotation.

With this in mind, take some time to listen to the recording you’re working with, or the portion you will be annotating. For teaching in a classroom setting, we recommend focusing on a relatively short excerpt of audio to ensure students have sufficient time to listen, process, and engage critically with the content.

Make sure you follow your school’s guidelines for classroom work involving potentially upsetting or controversial material. While we recognize the value and necessity of having difficult conversations, we also recommend discussing class expectations repeatedly and prior to working with these types of materials. You may also choose to modify the lesson introductory materials to add the necessary context for the material your class is working with based on your class’s learning objectives. To minimize student harm and risk When working with sensitive audio, we recommend having a secondary recording for students who express a high level of discomfort to work with that may explore similar themes, but not include explicit or triggering language.

Annotating and Reflecting

During and after a lesson, you might facilitate a group conversation about students’ different approaches to the listening and annotation processes. Note that any of the responses to the questions below may become an annotation, layer, or index term for students’ various AVAnnotate projects. It’s important to realize that annotating is almost always a slow and tedious process, and will likely involve listening and re-listening to an audio sample, perhaps even in multiple sessions. This may not be an easy process with any audio recording, but might be especially challenging with more sensitive audio. Focusing on a portion of the audio as suggested above can make the annotating process more digestible, as can reflecting on the process early and often, together or individually.

Here are some sample questions you may adapt to your classroom setting:

  1. What characteristics or events did you hear?
  2. What stuck out to you in this recording?
  3. What did you notice about the events and the people in the recording?
  4. What did you notice about the recording itself? (Clipping, increases/decreases in volume, etc.)
  5. What are some topics or themes associated with this recording?
  6. What makes annotating this recording challenging? (volume changes in tape, emotional moments, lack of context, etc.)
  7. What context are you missing? What are you uncertain about? (location of meeting, time of day, unsure of speakers, challenging to locate context about specific events, unidentifiable noises, etc.)
  8. What might you research more in-depth as you consider this recording?

In a classroom setting, students can work in groups to sort general observations and descriptions of audio into “categories” for annotation, deciding on these category titles as a group. Students can be put in groups to decide on what annotation “categories” to create annotations for and then move to working together or individually to write the accompanying annotations. For example, if students are noticing the recording’s environmental sounds (like car horns or birds in the background), they might create a category for annotations pertaining to environmental sounds before splitting up to listen closely for that category to annotate. Students can use these categories to fill out the “Layer” column of the annotation spreadsheet.

This lesson plan was developed according to multiple sources, including Carello & Butler’s “Practicing What We Teach: Trauma-informed Educational Practice” (2015) and materials developed by the Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia’s (A4BLiP), particularly the “Anti-Racist Description Resources” (2020). We also consulted Pinchevski’s 2 “Archive, Media, Trauma” in _On Media Memory (2011) and Hammond’s “Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students” (2015)._