Interviewing assignment

JOURN 300/Interviewing for information, meaningful content and quoteworthy quotes

Assignment: Interview a classmate about his or her home town. Get a basic feel for the city/town. For instance, how big approximately? Urban or rural? What is it known for? How do people there describe it? How is it described by outsiders?

Make it personal. Ask your subject to recall a moment he or she may recall when he/she reflected on the nature of the town. Did he or she always want to leave there? Does he/she want to go back?

Identify some QUOTEWORTHY quotes. Don’t just throw the quotes in. INTRODUCE them. Look for specific, concrete, colorful details. AVOID clichés. Think about every word. Think about the tone etc.

Spell check. Proofread. Post it on the class blog.

Example from a past class:

Moving from the Bronx to White Plains, NY at age 5, Shamique White was surprised at how small her new town was. (DOESN’T JUST SAY THE SUBJECT IS FROM WHATEVER CITY/TOWN BUT ESTABLISHES THE THEME OF THE PIECE, WHICH IS ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE OF MOVING FROM A BIG CITY TO A MORE SUBURBAN COMMUNITY/INTRODUCES THE FOLLOWING QUOTE.)

"I called it a ghost town," she said.(KEEP PARAGRAPHS SHORT FOR READABILITY AND IMPACT.

When she was young, White would spend her summer days playing at the park down the street from her home with other kids from her neighborhood when she was in White Plains. (CONCRETE IMAGE)

But on most weekends, sometimes for weeks at a time, White would go to the Bronx to go to church with her grandmother. (CONCRETE IMAGE)

"I went to school in White Plains, but I didn't hang out in White Plains," White says of her younger years. (MEANINGFUL QUOTE)

As she entered into middle school and then on to high school, White Plains began to grow more metropolitan. Lots of people moved from the city to her town and commuted to work in New York City, only a half hour south. Businesses also began to flourish in a downtown section that had a city-like feel. But the town still maintained some of its rural charm in certain neighborhoods. (GOOD DEMOGRAPHIC INFO PUTS THE SUBJECT’S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE INTO CONTEXT.)

The kids of White Plains joined into one public high school after being in five different elementary schools and two middle schools. White made close friends in high school, where the arts and basketball and track were popular activities for students.

Even though White went back and forth between the Bronx and White Plains at first, she still calls White Plains home. (NICE ENDING, BRINGS US BACK TO THE THEME. THE PIECE HAS A NARRATIVE “ARC.”)