Today in class, you will conduct a short personal interview that will serve as one of the sources for your project. If you decide that you do not want to use the interview that you conduct today, you are welcome to include another one in your project. Keep in mind, however, that the student interview you include must be conducted with a student currently enrolled in section eight, and the subject of the interview must be the subject of your project.
Directions
- As a group, discuss your subjects with your group members and decide who will interview whom.
- Conduct short one-on-one interviews that include the questions listed below. You are welcome to ask additional questions, but be mindful of your time constraints.
- Record your interviewees’ answers in your journal. If you aren’t able to record the answers verbatim as the interviewee speaks, ask him or her to repeat them. Questions to ask your interviewee include the following: (1) What experience, if any, did you have with the subject (the reading or the aspect of the course) before you encountered it in English 1103? (2) Has it changed your perspective on reading and/or writing? If so, how? (3) Will you continue to pursue the subject (read more work by the author, continue the classroom practice or activity) after the conclusion of the semester?
- After you conduct your interview, compose on the worksheet provided a sentence in which you introduce a quotation from the interview with a signal phrase, such as, According to . . . , or [insert first and last name] notes or observes or points out that . . . .” Your quotation will not be followed by a parenthetical citation because it is a form of oral communication (without page or paragraph numbers). See the sample on your worksheet.
- Follow your quotation with an annotated bibliography entry in this format: Last Name, First Name. Interview. Conducted by Your First Name Your Last Name. Day Month Year.*
- Complete your bibliographic entry with a three-paragraph annotation. Like the other annotations you will write, it will include a paragraph of summary, followed by a second of commentary. Because your interviewee is not a published writer, the third paragraph will differ from the credentials paragraphs in your model, “Scrabble as a Game Changer in the College Classroom.” See the sample below.
Sample Annotated Bibliographic Entry: Peer Interview
Brewer, Jesse. Interview. Conducted by Jane Lucas. 20 Oct. 2023.
English 1103 student Jesse Brewer recounts how he has played Scrabble for most of his life. Ever since he was a young child, he has played the game with his grandparents whenever he visited their home in Pennsylvania. Brewer will continue to play Scrabble after the end of the semester because the game remains a tradition in his family. In his words, “[M]y grandmother is still going to want to play it every summer.” Brewer also notes that the game has expanded his vocabulary, saying it has “introduced me to new words, which allows me to read and write more capably in everyday life.”
Brewer’s remarks on vocabulary building highlight the game’s verbal benefits, and his observations on Scrabble as a family tradition serve as a point of contrast to that of some other students’–such as Ava Salvant’s–who had not played Scrabble before playing it as a weekly exercise in English 1103.
Brewer is a junior computer science major at High Point University, where he was enrolled in English 1103, section 20, in 2023.
*Note that the bibliographic entries in your MS Word file or PDF should have hanging indents, and the first line of each paragraph should be indented five spaces or one-half inch.
Next Up
Wednesday’s class will be devoted to additional writing and research for your final essay and annotated bibliography. Details TBA.
Bonus Assignment
For the model final essay and annotated bibliography I am writing, I will conduct a student interview–possibly two. If you are available to be interviewed by me during my office hours or before class, between 10:10 and 10:30 a.m., be one of the first two students to email your available time to me no later than 5 p.m. tomorrow, March 24. I cannot interview you right before class. If you are not available to be interviewed during my office hours or before between 10:10 and 10:30 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I cannot interview you for this bonus assignment.
Jane Lucas 