Interviewing 101: The Sit-Down

PROCESS

Mindwarmer

Step 1:
Ahead of class, have students read a few assigned articles on the art of interviewing.

Samples:

• Columbia Journalism Review
• Poynter
• Journalism in the Americas at University of Texas, Austin

Step 2: 
Think of some of your idols, dead or alive. Now, close your eyes and pick one of them to focus on. Imagine they are walking through the door in five minutes. You have five minutes to come up with eight interview questions  (and order them). Go!

Step 3:
Ask for a few volunteers to share their idols and the set of questions they came up with.

Step 4:
Discussion: 

• What questions were similar?
• What questions stand out?
• What’s the difference between a basic question (Where are you from? How old are you?) and an unexpected question (When was the last time you cried? Did you have a pet when you were a kid?)?
• What was hard about your challenge?
• What makes a successful interview from the point of view of the reader? What does a reader want from a good interview?
• What makes a good interviewer?
• Discuss one or two of the pre-assigned readings and identify common themes. Do themes emerge as to what makes a good question?

EXERCISE

Step 5: 
Give an overview of the lesson and the goals for the class: Today, we are going to explore the art and craft of interviewing and how to encourage subjects to open up to you, incorporating some of the themes we identified in the mindwarmer.

Step 6:
Model two interviews for the class, one good and one bad:

• Set out two chairs in front of the classroom. Ask for a student volunteer to be the interviewee, or have a colleague join the class and be the interviewee for this part of the exercise. 
• Use a prop as your microphone.
• Instruct the class to observe and take notes on what you do well and not so well as an interviewer.
• Start with the bad interview first. Make all the mistakes and ham it up: chew gum, ask only yes or no questions, don’t make eye contact, interrupt, be rude, read straight from your list of questions, ask questions that were just answered, point the mic away from the subject, don’t listen, etc.
• For the second interview, the good one, it doesn’t have to be perfect, but do all the basics right: make eye contact, listen, ask follow-up questions, seem prepared, etc.

Step 7: 
Have students get into pairs and create a set of interviewing dos and don’ts based on what they observed.

Step 8:
Have the pairs share their dos and don’ts. Make a master list for the whole class.

Step 9: 
Listen to several professional interviews—especially live, unedited ones. 

Here are a few options to get you started:

• WNYC’s Brian Lehrer interviews Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
• Storycorps’ unedited interview between Abigail Pogrebin and Julie Stolzberg
• Mary Louise Kelly interviewing NPR CEO Jarl Mohn

Discuss the sample interviews.

Step 10: 
Add to the class list of dos and don’ts, if needed.

Step 11:
Have student pairs interview one another. 

Give them:

• Five minutes to prepare questions (both basic and unexpected)
• Five minutes to conduct interviews (swap roles)
• Five minutes to reflect on their own interviewing technique using the dos and don’ts checklist

Step 12:
Have students share their observations from the paired interviews. 

FEEDBACK?

We’d love to hear about your experience using this exercise in your classroom and get your thoughts on how we could improve. Use this form to let us know what you think!